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JULIUS CiESAR 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY BRAINERD KELLOGG, LL.D., FORMERLY 
DEAN OF THE FACULTY AND PROFESSOR OF 
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 
IN THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



0^ 



This series of books includes in complete editions those master- 
pieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use of 
schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes are chosen 
for their special qualifications in connection with the texts issued 
under their individual supervision, but familiarity with the 
practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholar- 
ship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduc- 
tion, including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation 
to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question 
chosen from the great body of English criticism, and, where possi- 
ble, a portrait of the author, are given. Ample explanatory 
notes of such passages in the text as call for special attention 
are supplied, but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the 
obvious are rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO 



Copyright, 1910 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

General Notice 5 

Introduction 7 

Life and Works of Shakespeare 7 

The Play: JuHus Caesar 12 

Critical Opinions 16 

Csesar 21 

Brutus and Cassius 22 

Portia 23 

Antony 24 

The Historical Caesar 25 

Shakespeare's Grammar and Versification 29 

Plan of Study 32 

The Tragedy of Julius C^sar 37 

Notes 141 

Questions for Study and Discussion 176 



EDITOR'S NOTE 



The text here presented has been carefully collated with that of 
six or seven of the best editions. Where there was any disagree- 
ment we have adopted the readings which seemed most reasonable 
and were supported by the best authority. 

Professor Meiklejohn's exhaustive notes form the substance of 
those here used; and his plan, as set forth in the " General Notice " 
annexed, has been carried out in these volumes. But as these 
editions of the plays are intended rather for pupils in school and 
college than for ripe Shakespearian scholars, we have not hesi- 
tated to prune his notes of whatever was thought to be too 
learned for our purpose, or on other grounds was deemed irrele- 
vant to it. 



GENERAL NOTICE 



"An attempt has been made in these editionsi to interpret 
Shakespeare by the aid of Shakespeare himself. The Method of 
Comparison has been constantly employed; and the language used 
by him in one place has been compared with the language used in 
other places in similar circumstances, as well as with older English 
and with newer English. 

"The first purpose in this elaborate annotation is, of course, 
the full working out of Shakespeare's meaning. The Editor has 
in all circumstances taken as much pains with this as if he had been 
making out the difficult and obscure terms of a will in which he 
himself was personally interested; and he submits that this thor- 
ough excavation of the meaning of a really profound thinker is 
one of the very best kinds of training that a boy or girl can receive 
at school. This is to read the very mind of Shakespeare, and to 
weave his thoughts into the fibre of one's own mental constitution. 
And always new rewards come to the careful reader — in the shape 
of new meanings, recognition of thoughts he had before missed, 
of relations between the characters that had hitherto escaped 
him. For reading Shakespeare is just like examining Nature; 
there are no hollownesses, there is no scamped work, for Shakp- 
Bpeare is as patiently exact and as first-hand as Nature herself. 

" Besides this thorough working-out of Shakespeare's meaning,, 
advantage has been taken of the opportunity to teach his Enghsh 
— to make each play an introduction to the English of Shake- 
speare. For this purpose copious collections of similar phrases 
have been gathered from other plays; his idioms have been dwelt 
upon; his peculiar use of words; his style and his rhythm. Some 
teachers may consider that too many instances are given; but, in 
teaching, as in everything else, the old French saying is true; 

5 



6 GENERAL NOTICE 

Assez n'y a, s'il trop n'y a. The teacher need not require eacti 
pupil to give him all the instances collected. If each gives one or 
two, it will probably be enough; and, among them all, it is certain 
that one or two will stick in the memory. 

"It were much to be hoped that Shakespeare should become 
more and more of a study, and that every boy and girl should have 
a thorough knowledge of at least one play of Shakespeare before 
leaving school. It would be one of the best lessons in human life. 
It would also have the effect of bringing back into the too pale and 
formal English of modern times a large number of pithy and vigor- 
ous phrases which would help to develop as well as to reflect 
vigor in the characters of the readers. Shakespeare used the 
English language with more power than any other writer that ever 
lived — he made it do more and say more than it had ever done; 
he made it speak in a more original way; and his combinations of 
words are perpetual provocations and invitations to originality 
and to newness of insight." — J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M. A., Late 
^rofessoi of Pedagogy in the University of St. Andrews. 



INTRODUCTION 

LIFE AND WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE 

"Shakespeare was born, it is thought, April 23, 1564, the son of 
a comfortable burgess of Stratford-on-Avon. While he was still 
young, his father fell into poverty, and an interrupted education 
left the son an inferior scholar. He had 'small Latin and less 
Greek.' But by dint of genius and by living in a society in which 
all sorts of information were attainable, he became an accomplished 
man. The story told of his deer-stealing in Charlecote woods is 
without proof, but it is likely that his youth was wild and passion- 
ate. At nineteen he married Ann Hathaway, seven years older 
than himself,' and was probably unhappy with her. For this 
reason or from poverty, or from the driving of the genius that led 
him to the stage, he left Stratford about 1586-1587, and went to 
London at the age of twenty-two; and, falling in with Marlowe, 
Greene, and the rest, he became an actor and a playwright, and 
may have lived their unrestrained and riotous life for some years. 

"His First Period. — It is probable that before leaving Strat- 
ford he had sketched a part at least of his VeniLS and Adonis. It 
is full of the country sights and sounds, of the ways of birds and 
animals, such as he saw when wandering in Charlecote woods. Its 
rich and overladen poetry and its warm coloring made him, when 
it was published, in 1593, at once the favorite of men like Lord 
Southampton, and lifted him into fame. But before that date he 
had done work for the stage by touching up old plays and writing 
new ones. We seem to trace his 'prentice hand' in many dramas 
of the time, but the first he is usually thought to have retouched is 
Titus Andronicus, and, some time after, the First Part of Henry VL 

" Love's Labour 's Lost, the first of his original plays, in which' he 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

quizzed and excelled the Euphuists in wit, was followed by the 
rapid farce of The Comedy of Errors. Out of these frolics of intellect 
and action he passed into pure poetry in A Midsummer Night's 
Dream, and mingled into fantastic beauty the classic legend, the 
mediaeval fairyland, and the clownish life of the English mechanic. 
Italian story then laid its charm upon him, and Two Gentlemen oj 
Verona preceded the southern glow of passion in Romeo and Juliet, 
in which he first reached tragic power. They complete, with 
Love's Labour 's Won, afterwards recast as All 's Well That Ends 
Well, the love plays of his early period. We may, perhaps, add 
to them the second act of an older play, Edward III. We should 
certainly read along with them, as belonging to the same passion- 
ate time, his Rape of Lucrece, a poem finally printed in 1594, one 
year later than the Venus and Adonis. 

" The patriotic feeling of England, also represented in Marlowe 
and Peele, now seized on him, and he turned from love to begin 
his great series of historical plays with Richard II, 1593-1594. 
Richard III followed quickly. To introduce it and to complete 
the subject, he recast the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI 
(written by some unknown authors), and ended his first period 
with King John — five plays in a little more than two years. 

" His Second Period, 1596-1602.— In The Merchant of Venice 
Shakespeare reached entire mastery over his art. A mingled woof 
of tragic and comic threads is brought to its highest point of color 
when Portia and Shylock meet in court. Pure comedy followed in 
his retouch of the old Taming of the Shrew, and all the wit of the 
world, mixed with noble history, met next in the three comedies 
of F distaff, the First and Second Parts of Henry IV, and the Merry 
Wives of Windsor. The historical plays were then closed with 
Henry V, a splendid dramatic song to the glory of England. 

" The Globe theater, in which he was one of the proprietors, was 
built in 1599. In the comedies he wrote for it, Shakespeare turned 
to write of love again, not to touch its deeper passion as before, 
but to play with it in all its lighter phases. The flashing dialogue 
of Much Ado About Nothing was followed by the far-off forest 
world of .4s You Like It, where 'the time fleets carelessly,' and 



LIFE AND WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE 9 

Rosalind's character is the play. Amid all its gracious lightness 
steals in a new element, and the melancholy of Jaques is the first 
touch we have of the older Shakespeare who had 'gained his 
experience, and whose experience had made him sad.' And yet 
it was but a touch; Twelfth Night shows no trace of it, though the 
play that followed. All 's Well That Ends Well, again strikes a 
sadder note. We find this sadness fully grown in the. later sonnets, 
which are said to have been finished about 1602. They were pub- 
lished in 1609. 

"Shakespeare's life changed now, and his mind changed with 
it. He had grown wealthy during this period and famous, and was 
loved by society. He was the friend of the Earls of Southampton 
and Essex, and of William Herbert, Lord Pembroke. The queen 
patronized him; all the best literary society was his own. He had 
rescued his father from poverty, bought the best house in Strat- 
ford and much land, and was a man of wealth and comfort. Sud- 
denly all his life seems to have grown dark. His best friends fell 
into ruin, Essex perished on the scaffold, Southampton went to 
the Tower, Pembroke was banished from the Court; he may him- 
self, as some have thought, have been concerned in the rising of 
Essex. Added to this, we may conjecture, from the imaginative 
pageantry of the sonnets, that he had unwisely loved, and been 
betrayed in his love by a dear friend. Disgust of his profession 
as an actor, and public and private ill weighed heavily on him, 
and in darkness of spirit, though still clinging to the business of 
the theater, he passed from comedy to write of the sterner side of 
the world, to tell the tragedy of mankind. 

"His Third Period, 1602-1608, begins with the last days of 
Queen Elizabeth. It contains all the great tragedies/ and opens 
with the fate of Hamlet, who felt, like the poet himself, that ' the 
time was out of joint.' Hamlet, the dreamer, may well represent 
Shakespeare as he stood aside from the crash that overwhelmed 
his friends, and thought on the changing world. The tragi-comedy 
of Measure for Measure was next written, and is tragic in thought 
throughout. Julius Cwsar, Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Troilus and 
Cressida (finished from an incomplete work of his youth), Antc^y 



10 INTRODUCTION 

and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon (only in part his own), were all 
written in these five years. The darker sins of men, the unpitying 
fate which slowly gathers round and falls on men, the avenging 
wrath of conscience, the cruelty and punishment of weakness, the 
treachery, lust, jealousy, ingratitude, madness of men, the follies 
of the great, and the fickleness of the mob are all, with a thousand 
other varying moods and passions, painted, and felt as his own 
while he painted them, during this stern time. 

"His Fourth Period, 1608-1613.— As Shakespeare wrote of 
these things, he passed out of them, and his last days are full of 
the gentle and loving calm of one who has known sin and sorrow 
and fate but has risen above them into peaceful victory. Like his 
great contemporary. Bacon, he left the world and his own evil time 
behind him, and with the same quiet dignity sought the innocence 
and stillness of country life. The country breathes through all 
the dramas of this time. The flowers Perdita gathers in The 
Winter's Tale, and the frolic of the sheep-shearing he may have 
seen in the Stratford meadows; the song of Fidele in Cymbeline is 
written by one who already feared no more the frown of the great, 
nor slander nor censure rash, and was looking forward to the time 
when men should say of him — 

Quiet consummation have; 
And renowned be thy grave! 

"Shakespeare probably left London in 1609, and lived in the 
house he had bought at Stratford-on-Avon. He was reconciled, it 
is said, to his wife, and the plays he writes speak of domestic peace 
and forgiveness. The story of Marina, which he left unfinished, and 
which two later writers expanded into the play of Pericles, is the 
first of his closing series of dramas. The Two Noble Kinsmen of 
Fletcher, a great part of which is now, on doubtful grounds, I 
think, attributed to Shakespeare, and in which the poet sought 
the inspiration of Chaucer, would belong to this period. Cymbeline, 
The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest bring his history up to 1612, 
and in the next year he closed his poetic life by writing, with 
^ietcber, Henry VIII. For three years he kept silence, and then, 



LIFE AND WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE 11 

on the 23d of April, ^1616, the day he reached the age of fifty-two, 
as is supposed, he died. 

** His Work. — We can only guess with regard to Shakespeare's 
life; we can only guess with regard to his character. We have 
tried to find out what he was from his sonnets and from his plays, 
but every attempt seems to be a failure. We cannot lay our hand 
on anything and say for certain that it was spoken by Shakespeare 
out of his own character. The most personal thing in all his writ- 
ings is one that has scarcely been noticed. It is the Epilogue to 
The Tempest; and if it be, as is most probable, the last thing he 
ever wrote, then its cry for forgiveness, its tale of inward sorrow, 
only to be relieved by prayer, give us some dim insight into how 
the silence of those three years was passed; while its declaration 
of his aim in writing, 'which was to please,' — the true definition 
of an artist's aim, — should make us cautious in our efforts to de- 
fine his character from his works. Shakespeare made men and 
women whose dramatic action on each other, and towards a catas- 
trophe, was intended to please the public, not to reveal himself. 

''No commentary on his writings, no guesses about his life or 
character, are worth much which do not rest on this canon as their 
foundation: What he did, thought, learned, and felt, he did, 
thought, learned, and felt as an artist. . . . Fully influenced, as 
we see in Hamlet he was, by the graver and more philosophic cast 
of thought of the later time of Elizabeth ; passing on into the reign 
of James I, when pedantry took the place of gayety, and sensual 
the place of imaginative love in the drama, and artificial art the 
place of that art which itself is nature; he preserves to the last the 
natural passion, the simple tenderness, the sweetness, grace, and 
fire of the youthful Elizabethan poetry. The Winter's Tale is as 
lovely a love story as Romeo and Juliet; The Tempest is more 
instinct with imagination than A Midsummer Night's Dream, and 
as great in fancy; and yet there are fully twenty years between 
them. The only change is in the increase of power, and in a closer 
and graver grasp of human nature. Around him the whole tone 
and manner of the drama altered for the worse, but his work 
grew to the close in strength and beauty." — Stopford Brooke. 



THE PLAY: JULIUS C^SAR 

Time of the Action. — " This tragedy embraces two memora* 

ble years of Roman history. It commences with the festival of 

the Lupercaha in February 44 b. c, or in the year of Rome 709. 

Caesar had in the preceding autumn returned triumphant from 

Spain, having defeated the sons of Pompey, and been appointed 

consul for a period of ten years and dictator for life. To fill the 

measure of Caesar's ambition, or of his own adulation, Mark 

Antony then offered him the regal crown or diadem, which Caesar 

reluctantly refused, and in one month afterwards (March 15) the 

great soldier and statesman fell under the swords of the assassins. 

The incidents of the conspiracy and death having been depicted 

with all the dramatist's marvellous power and truth, he hurries 

\ over the succeeding events, devoting one short scene to the mer- 

I ciless conscription of the triumvirs, and the drama closes with the 

»^ battle of Philippi and the death of Brutus, 42 b. a.^ 

Historical Sources. — " The authority relied upon by Shake- 
speare for his historical facts was Plutarch's Lives, translated 
from the French of Amyot by Sir Thomas North, and published 
in 1579. The work was highly popular, and the poet followed 
it closely, but in one point he departed from it and from the 
truth of history: he made the Capitol the scene of Caesar's as- 
sassination, whereas it took place in the senate-house, or, as 
North has it, in 'one of the porches about the theater where 
was set up the image of Pompey.' In the delineation of character 
also the poet, though working after the models afforded by 
Plutarch, introduces some modifications. . . . 

History of the Play. — "Shakespeare's drama was first printed 
in the folio of 1623. It appears in a more accurate form than 
most of the plays, yet about a score of misprints and minor errors 

12 



THE PLAY: JULIUS C^SAR 13 

have been removed by the care of successive editors. The usual 
date of the composition of Julius Ccesar is referred to the year 
1607, but Mr. ColHer has shown good reasons for beheving that it 
was acted before 1603. The subject had previously been drama- 
tized. Gosson mentions a play entitled The History of Ccesar 
and Pompey, in 1579; and in 1582 a Latin play by Dr. Richard 
Eedes, on the subject of Caesar's murder, was acted in the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. Lord Stirling, in 1604, published a tragedy 
entitled Julius Ccesar. To none of these, so far as can be ascer- 
tained, was Shakespeare indebted." — Meiklejohn. 

Composition of the Play. — " What has been most censured 
in Julius Ccesar is, that the piece suffers from a very undra- 
matic form of composition, inasmuch as it obviously falls into two 
halv es, one of which represents the death of Caesar, the other the 
history of Brutus and Cassius. And certainly the external com- 
position is defective in so far as in the first half the action turns 
upon the fall of Caesar and in the second upon the fate of Brutus 
and Cassius. Yet both halves are nevertheless externally con- 
nected in so far as the subject of the action in the first part is 
not so much Caesar's death as, in reality, the conspiracy against 
his supreme power and the attempt to restore the Republic; in 
the second, we have the course and unhappy termination of 
this undertaking. 

"The unity of interest in a free dramatic poem, however, does 
not necessarily require to be a purely personal one; in this case 
the interest — just because it is dramatic — is first of all connected 
with the action, springs forth out of it, and rises and falls with it. 
And even though the free dramatic poem is the more perfect in 
form and composition the more it manages to concentrate the 
interest of the action in the one person of the hero, still the histori- 
cal drama is not bound by exactly the same laws as the freely 
invented composition. Li the historical drama, the interest — if it 
is to be historical — must above all things be truly historical, then 
it will be truly poetic as well. History, however, in a certain 
sense does not trouble itself about persons; its chief interest is in 
Justorical facts and their meaning. 



14 INTRODUCTION 

"Now in Julius Ccesar we have absolutely only one point of 
interest — a true, but variously jointed, unity. One and the same 
thought is reflected in the fall of Caesar, in the deaths of Brutus and 
Cassius, and in the victory of Antony and Octavius. No man, even 
though he were as mighty as Caesar and as noble as Brutus, is suffi- 
ciently great to guide history according to his own will ; every one, 
according to his vocation, may contribute his stone to the building 
of the grand whole, but let no one presume to think that he can, 
with impunity, experiment with it. The great Caesar, however, 
merely experimented when he allowed the royal crown to be offered 
to him and then rejected it thrice against his own will. He could 
not curb his ambition — this history might perhaps have pardoned ; 
but he did not understand her, and attempted that which she, at 
the time at least, did not yet wish. The consequence of this error 
which was entirely his own, the consequence of this arrogant pre- 
sumption which the still active repubhcan spirit, the old Roman 
fove and pride of freedom, stirred up against him, proved his 
downfall. 

"But Brutus and Cassius erred also, by imagining that Rome 
could be kept in its glory and preserved from its threatening ruin 
simply by the restoration of the Republic. . . . They too experi- 
mented with history; Cassius trusted that his ambitious and selfish 
will, and Brutus, that his noble and self-sacrificing will, would be 
strong enough to direct the course of history. For both felt that 
the moral spirit of the Roman nation had sunk too deep to be 
able in future to govern itself as a Republic; Cassius knew, Brutus 
suspected, that the Republic was coming to an end. But in their 
republican pride, and feehng their republican honor hurt, they 
thought themselves called upon to make an attempt to save it, 
they trusted to their power to be able, as it were, to take it upon 
their shoulders and so keep its head above water. This was the 
arrogance which was added to the error, and which spurred them 
on not only to unreasonable undertakings but to a criminal act; 
and, therefore, they doubly deserved the punishment which befell 
them. 

"Antony, on the other hand, with Octavius and Lepidus, — the 



THE PLAY: JULIUS CjESAR 15 

talented voluptuary, the clever actor, and the good-natured simple- 
ton, — although not half so powerful and noble as their opponents, 
come off victorious, because, in fact, they but followed the course 
of history and knew how to make use of it. Thus in all the prin- 
cipal parts we have the same leading thought, the same unity 
in the (historical) interest, except that it is reflected in various 
ways. . . . 

" Thus history appears represented from one of its main aspects, 
in its inner, autocratic, active, and formative power, by which, 
although externally formed by individual men, it nevertheless 
controls and marches over the heads of the greatest of them."— • 
Ulrici, Shakespeare's Dramatic Art. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 

"Everything is wrought out in the play with great care and 
completeness; it is well planned and well proportioned; there is no 
tempestuousness of passion, and no artistic mystery. The style 
is full, but not overburdened with thought or imagery. This is one 
of the most perfect of Shakespeare's plays; greater tragedies are 
less perfect, perhaps for the very reason that they try to grasp 
greater, more terrible, or more piteous themes. 

"In King Henry V Shakespeare had represented a great and 
heroic man of action. In the serious plays, which come next in 
chronological order, Julius Ccesar and Hamlet, the poet represents 
two men who were forced to act,— to act in public affairs, and 
affairs of life and death,— yet who were singularly disqualified 
for playing the part of men of action. Hamlet cannot act because 
his moral energy is sapped by a kind of scepticism and sterile 
despair about life, because his own ideas are more to him than 
deeds, because his will is diseased. Brutus does act, but he acts 
as an idealist and theorizer might, with no eyes for the actual 
bearing of facts, and no sense of the true importance of persons. 
Intellectual doctrines and moral ideals rule the hfe of Brutus; and 
his life is most noble, high, and stainless, but his public action is 
a series of practical mistakes. Yet even while he errs we admire 
him, for all his errors are those of a pure and lofty spirit. He fails 
to see how full of power Antony is, because Antony loves pleas- 
ure, and is not a Stoic, like himself; he addresses calm arguments 
to the excited Roman mob; he spares the hfe of Antony and allows 
him to address the people; he advises ill in mihtary matters. All 
the practical gifts, insight and tact, which Brutus lacks, are 
possessed by Cassius; but of Brutus's moral purity, veneration of 
ideals, disinterestedness, and freedom from unworthy personal 

16 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 17 

motive, Cassius possesses little. And the moral power of Brutus 
has in it something magisterial, which enables it to oversway the 
practical judgment of Cassius. In his wife — Cato's daughter, 
Portia — Brutus has found one who is equal to and worthy of 
himself. Shakespeare has shown her as perfectly a woman, — 
sensitive, finely tempered, tender, — yet a woman who, by her 
devotion to moral ideals, might stand beside such a father and 
such a husband. And Brutus, with all his stoicism, is gentle and 
tender; he can strike down Caesar if Caesar be a tyrant, but he can- 
not roughly arouse a sleeping boy (act IV. sc. iii. 1. 271). Antony 
is a man of genius, with many splendid and some generous qualities, 
but self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, and a daring adventurer, rather 
than a great leader of the state. 

"The character of Caesar is conceived in a curious and almost 
irritating manner. Shakespeare (as passages in other plays show) 
was certainly not ignorant of the greatness of one of the world's 
greatest men. But here it is his weaknesses that are insisted on. 
He is failing in body and mind, influenced by superstition, yields to 
flattery, thinks of himself as almost superhuman, has lost some of 
his insight into character, and his sureness and swiftness of action. 
Yet the play is rightly named Julius Coesar. His bodily presence 
is weak, but his spirit rules throughout the play, and rises after, 
his death in all its might, towering over the little band of conspira- 
tors, who at length fall before the spirit of Caesar as it ranges for 
revenge." — Dowden, Shakespeare Primer. 

" We doubt whether we shall find Shakespeare greater, when he 
invented everything regardless of his sources, or here where he 
took all as he found it — whether we shall most admire in the one 
case his free power of creation, or in the other his submission and 
self-denial. Far from all pride of authorship and all pursuit after 
originality, he appears here before a classic biographer, never 
attempting to strive with nature, but rather reverentially to pre- 
serve her uninjured in the genuine form which he found before 
him. . . . 

" It is at the same time wonderful, with what hidden and almost 



X8 INTRODUCTION 

undiscernible power he has converted the text into a drama, and 
made one of the most effective plays possible. Nowhere else has 
Shakespeare executed his task with such simple skill, combining 
his dependence on history with the greatest freedom of a poetic 
plan, and making the truest history at once the freest drama. . . . 

"The play under consideration is a most striking variation on 
the theme of Hamlet and Macbeth, and gives us a new and re- 
markable proof of the depth and many-sidedness with which 
Shakespeare thought out and elaborated any problem he had once 
seized upon. A deed of greater weight than that demanded of 
Hamlet or planned by Macbeth is laid on this pattern of a man — 
the murder of a hero, who had increased the greatness of Rome as 
much as he had endangered her freedom. It is a deed of a nature 
doubtful in itself, which is required of him, not one decidedly right 
or decidedly wrong, like that to which Hamlet was called and to 
which Macbeth was tempted. The uncertainty, the doubt, the 
discord, lay in the other instances in the men themselves, here it 
lies in the thing itself, and is only from thence transferred to an 
even, clear, and right-judging mind. . . . 

" Brutus is persuaded by his friends to take part in a murder 
and conspiracy, as he himself calls it; for the restoration of free- 
dom, his task is to prevent an injustice as yet only apprehended on 
Caesar's part; he desires the end, but only the means most necessary 
for attaining it; he takes the first step, but not the second and third; 
whereas he should either not have taken the first or he should also 
have taken the others. . . . 

"If Brutus erred more than Cassius in the means he employed 
in their undertaking, they both erred equally in the final aim of it. 
The restoration of the Republic was no longer possible; the people 
had become unfit for freedom. Shakespeare has not subjected 
this historical view to any discussion, unsuitable to a drama; but 
he found it in Plutarch, and with thorough understanding adopted 
it with artistic representation for his work of art. 

"Fortune, chance, Providence, says Plutarch, were against the 
republicans; it appeared as if the realm could no longer be governed 
by a plurality, but necessarily demanded one monarch. The gods 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 19 

had, flierefore, given the people Csesar as a mild physician, who 

was best fitted to restore them; this showed itself when, immedi- 
ately after his death, they lamented him and would never forgive 
his murderers — as Shakespeare expresses it, when it pleased them 
to need the death of Brutus. 

"The poet has described this people according to Plutarch's 
view of them. First they shouted after Pompey, and when Caesar 
came in triumph over Pompey's corpse, they shouted after Csesar. 
Brutus kills Csesar, and they shout after him also. ... As soon 
as Antony advances, they begin to consider ' whether a worse may 
not come in Csesar's place;' that another must come in his place, 
seems to be no longer a question. With such a people, Bnitus's 
noble thought of restoration was but a lovely dream." — Gervinus, 
Shakespeare Commentaries. 

"Shakespeare has in this play and elsewhere shown the same 
penetration into political character and the springs of public 
events as into those of everyday life. For instance, the whole 
design of the conspirators to hberate their country fails from the 
generous temper and overweening confidence of Brutus in the 
goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. Thus it has 
always been. Those who mean well themselves think well of 
others, and fall a prey to their security. 

"That humanity and honesty which dispose men to resist injus- 
tice and tyranny, render them unfit to cope with the cunning and 
power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty 
trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sin- 
cere, and endeavor to reconcile the pubhc good with the least possi- 
ble hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their 
own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. 
Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. His heart prompted 
his head. His watchful jealousy made him fear the worst that 
might happen, and his irritability of temper added to his inveteracy 
of purpose, and sharpened his patriotism. The mixed nature of 
his motives made him fitter to contend with bad men. The vices 
are never so well employed as in combating one another. Tyranny 



20 INTRODUCTION 

and servility are to be dealt with after their own fashion- other- 
wise they will triumph over those who spare them, and finally 
pronounce their funeral panegyric, as Antony did that of Bru- 
tus. . . , 

"The truth of history in Julius Ccesar is very ably worked up 
with dramatic effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful 
turns of battles, are represented to the life. The death of Brutus 
is worthy of him; it has the dignity of the Roman senator with the 
firmness of the Stoic philosopher. But what is perhaps better than 
either, is the little incident of his boy, Lucius, falling asleep over 
his instrument, as he is playing to his master in his tent, the night 
before the battle. Nature had played him the same forgetful 
trick once before, on the night of the conspiracy. The humanity 
of Brutus is the same on both occasions." — Hazlitt, Characters 
of Shakespeare's Plays. 

"Shakespeare's drama rests entirely upon the character of 
Brutus; and he has even been blamed for not having entitled his 
work Marcus Brutus instead of Julius Coesar. But if Brutus is 
the hero of the play, the power and death of Csesar form its subject. 
Caisar alone occupies the foreground; the horror felt for his power, 
and the necessity of deliverance from it, fill the whole of the first 
part of the drama; the other half is consecrated to the recollection 
and consequences of his death. It is, as Antony says: — 

Caesar's spirit, ranging on revenge; 

and, that his sway may not be lost sight of, it is still his spirit 
which, on the plains of Sardis and Philippi, appears to Brutus as 
his evil genius. 

"The picture of this great catastrophe, however, finishes with 
the death of Brutus. Shakespeare desired to interest us in the 
event of his drama only as it related to Brutus, just as he presented 
Brutus to us only in relation to the event. The fact which fur- 
nishes the subject of the tragedy, and the character which accom- 
plishes it, the death of Csesar and the character of Brutus,- -this 
is the union which constitutes Shakespeare's dramatic work, just 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 21 

as the union of soul and body constitutes life, both elements being 
equally necessary to the existence of the individual- Before the 
death of Caesar was planned, the play does not begin; after th^ 
death of Brutus, it ends." — Guizot, Shakespeare and His Times. 

C^SAR 

" Caesar need n'ot condescend to the ordinary ways of obtaining 
acquaintance with facts. He asks no question of the soothsayer. 
He takes the royal road to knowledge — intuition. This self- 
indulgence of his own foibles is, as it were, symbolized by his 
physical infirmity, which he admits in lordly fashion — 'Come on 
my right hand, for this ear is deaf.' Caesar is entitled to own such a 
foible as deafness; it may pass well with Caesar. If men would have 
him hear them, let them come to his right ear. Meanwhile, things 
may be whispered which it were well for him if he strained an ear- 
right or left — to catch. In Shakespeare's rendering of the character 
of Caesar, which has considerably bewildered his critics, one thought 
of the poet would seem to be this: that unless a man continually 
keeps himself in relation with facts, and with his present person 
and character, he may become to himself legendary and mythical. 
The real man Caesar disappears for himself under the greatness of.^ 
"Oie Csesar myth. He forgets himself as he actually is, and knows 
only the vast legendary power named Caesar. He is a numen to 
himself, speaking of Csesar in the third person, as if of some power 
above and behind his consciousness. And at this very moment — ■ 
so ironical is the time-spirit — Cassius is cruelly insisting to Brutus 
upon all those infirmities which prove this god no more than a 
pitiful mortal. . . . 

"It is_the_spirit_ of Caesar which is the dominant power of the 
tragedy; against this — the spirit of Csesar — Brutus fought; but 
"Brutus, who forever errs in practical politics, succeeded only in 
striking down Caesar's body; he who had been weak now rises as 
pure spirit, strong and terrible, and avenges himself upon the 
conspirators. . . . The ghost of Csesar (designated by Plutarch 
only the ' evill spirit ' of Brutus) , which appears on the night be- 
fore the battle of Philippi, serves as a kind of visible symbol oi 



22 INTRODUCTION 

the vast posthumous power of the dictator. . . . Finally, the 
little effort of the aristocrat republicans sinks to the ground foiled 
and crushed by the force which they had hoped to abolish with one 
violent blow. . . . Brutus dies; and Octavius lives to reap the 
fruit whose seed had been sown by his great predecessor. With 
strict propriety, therefore, the play bears the name of Julius Caesar." 
— DowDEN, Shakespeare, His Mind and Art 

Brutus and Cassius 

"Shakespeare has scarcely created anything more splendid 
than the relation in which he has placed Cassius to Brutus. Closely 
as he has followed Plutarch, the poet has by slight alterations 
skilfully placed this character, even more than the historian has 
done, in the sharpest contrast to Brutus — the clever, politic revo- 
lutionist opposed to the man of noble soul and moral nature. . . . 

"According to Plutarch, public opinion distinguished between 
Brutus and Cassius thus: that it was said that Brutus hated ty- 
ranny, Cassius tyrants; yet, adds the historian, the latter was in- 
spired with a universal hatred of tyranny also. Thus has Shake- 
speare represented him. His Cassius is imbued with a thorough 
love of freedom and equality; he groans under the prospect of 
a monarchical time more than the others; he does not bear this 
burden with thoughtful patience like Brutus, but his ingenious 
mind strives with natural opposition to throw it off. . . . With his 
hatred of tyrants there is mixed the envy of Caesar belonging to 
the more meanly endowed man ; he remembers that he had once saved 
the life of the emperor in a swimming match, that he had seen 
him sick and subject to human infirmities, and now he is to bow 
before this man as before a god, he is to see him ' bestride the nar- 
row world, like a Colossus,' while 'petty men walk under his huge 
legs.' He seems inclined to measure rank by bodily strength 
rather than by power of mind. . . . 

" The difference, therefore, between his nature and the character 
of Brutus comes out on every occasion: Brutus appears throughout 
just as humanely noble as Cassius is politically superior; eacir 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 23 

lacks what is best in the other, and the possession of which would 
make each perfect." — Gervinus, Shakespeare Commentaries. 

"I know no part of Shakespeare that more impresses on me 
the behef of his genius being superhuman than the scene between 
Brutus and Cassius [act IV. sc. iii]. In the Gnostic heresy it 
might have been credited with less absurdity than most of their 
dogmas, that the Supreme had employed him to create, previously 
to his function of representing, characters." — Coleridge, Lecturer 
on Shakespeare and Milton. 

Portia 

" Portia, as Shakespeare has truly felt and represented the char- 
acter, is but a softened reflection of that of her husband Brutus. In 
him we see an excess of natural sensibility, an almost womanish 
tenderness of heart, repressed by the tenets of his austere philoso- 
phy: a Stoic by profession, and in reality the reverse — acting deeds 
against his nature by the strong force of principle and will. In 
Portia there is the same profound and passionate feeling, and all her 
sex's softness and timidity held in check by that self-discipline, that 
stately dignity, which she thought became a woman 'so fathered 
and so husbanded.' The fact of her inflicting on herself a voluntary 
wound to try her own fortitude is perhaps the strongest proof of 
this disposition. Plutarch relates that on the day on which Csesar 
was assassinated Portia appeared overcome with terror, and even 
swooned away, but did not in her emotion utter a word which 
could affect the conspirators. . . . 

"There is another beautiful incident related by Plutarch which 
could not well be dramatized. When Brutus and Portia parted 
for the last time in the island of Nisida, she restrained all expres- 
sion of grief that she might not shake his fortitude; but afterwards, 
in passing through a chamber in which there hung a picture ot 
Hector and Andromache, she stopped, gazed upon it for a time 
with a settled sorrow, and at length burst into a passion of tears. 

"If Portia had been a Christian, and lived in later times, she 
might have been another Lady Russell ; but she made a poor Stoic. 
No factitious or external control was sufficieut to restrain such an 



24 INTRODUCTION 

exuberance of sensibility and fancy; and those who praise the 
philosophy of Portia and the heroism of her death, certainly mis- 
took the character altogether. It is evident, from the manner of 
her death, that it was not deliberate self-destruction, 'after the 
high Roman fashion,' but took place in a paroxysm of madness, 
caused by overwrought and suppressed feeling, grief, terror, and 
suspense." — Mrs. Jameson, Characteristics of Women. 

Antony 

"Antony is a man of genius without moral fibre; a nature of a 
rich, sensitive, pleasure-loving kind; the prey of good impulses 
and of bad; looking on life as a game, in which he has a distin- 
guished part to play, and playing that part with magnificent 
grace and skill. He is capable of personal devotion (though not 
of devotion to an idea), and has indeed a gift for subordination — 
subordination to a Julius Caesar, to a Cleopatra. And as he has 
enthusiasm about great personalities, so he has a contempt for in- 
efficiency and ineptitude. Lepidus is to him * a slight, unmeritable 
man, meet to be sent on errands,' one that is to be talked of not as 
a person, but as a property. ... 

"Brutus, over whom his ideals dominate, and who is blind to 
facts which are not in harmony with his theory of the universe, is 
quite unable to perceive the power for good or for evil that is 
lodged in Antony, and there is in the great figure of Antony noth- 
ing which can engage or interest his imagination; for Brutus's view 
of life is not imaginative, or pictorial, or dramatic, but wholly ethi- 
cal. The fact that Antony abandons himself to pleasure, is ' game- 
some,' reduces him in the eyes of Brutus to a very ordinary person — • 
one who is silly or stupid enough not to recognize the first principle 
of human conduct, the need of self-mastery; one against whom the 
laws of the world must fight, and who is therefore of no importance. 
And Brutus was right with respect to the ultimate issues for An- 
tony. Sooner or later Antony must fall to ruin. But before the 
moral defect in Antony's nature destroyed his fortune, much was 
to happen. Before Actium might come Philippi." — Dowden, 
Shakespeare, His Mind and Art. 



THE HISTORICAL C^SAR 

"In person Csesar was tall and slight. His features were more 
refined than was usual in Roman faces; the forehead was wide 
and high, the nose large and thin, the lips full, the eyes dark gray- 
like an eagle's, the neck extremely thick and sinewy. His complex- 
ion was pale. His beard and mustache were kept carefully shaved. 
His hair was short and naturally scanty, falHng off toward the 
end of his life and leaving him partially bald. His voice, especially 
when he spoke in public, was high and shrill. His health was uni- 
formly strong until his last year, when he became subject to epi- 
leptic fits. He was a great bather, and scrupulously clean in all 
his habits ; abstemious in his food, and careless in what it consisted, 
rarely or never touching wine, and noting sobriety as the highest 
of qualities when describing any new people. He was an athlete 
in early life, admirable in all manly exercises, and especially in 
riding. In Gaul he rode a remarkable horse, which he had bred 
himself, and which would let no one but Csesar mount him. From 
his boyhood it was observed of him that he was the truest of friends, 
that he avoided quarrels, and was most easily appeased when 
offended. In manner he was quiet and gentlemanlike, with the 
natural courtesy of high breeding. On an occasion when he was 
dining somewhere, the other guests found the oil too rancid for 
them; Csesar took it without remark, to spare his entertainer's 
feelings. When on a journey through a forest with his friend 
Oppius, he came one night to a hut where there was a single bed. 
Oppius being unwell, Csesar gave it up to him, and slept on the 
ground. 

"In his public character he may be regarded under three as- 
pects — as a politician, a soldier, and a man of letters. 

" Like Cicero, Csesar entered public Uf e at the bar. He belonged 

?5 



26 INTRODUCTION 

by birth to the popular party, but hie showed no disposition, Hke 
the Gracchi, to plunge into political agitation. His aims were prac- 
tical. He made war only upon injustice and oppression; and when 
he commenced as a pleader he was noted for the energy with which 
he protected a client whom he believed to have been wronged. . . . 
When he rose into the Senate, his powers as a speaker became 
strikingly remarkable. Cicero, who often heard him, and was 
not a favorable judge, said that there was a pregnancy in his 
sentences and a dignity in his manner which no orator in Rome 
could approach. But he never spoke to court popularity; his aim 
from first to last was better government, the prevention of bribery 
and extortion, and the distribution among deserving citizens of 
some portion of the public land which the rich were stealing. . . . 

"The practicality which showed itself in his general aims ap- 
peared also in his mode of working. Csesar, it was observed, when 
anything was to be done, selected the man who was best able to 
do it, not caring particularly who or what he might be in other 
respects. To this faculty of discerning and choosing fit persons 
to execute his orders may be ascribed the extraordinary success 
of his own provincial administration, the enthusiasm which was 
felt for him in the north of Italy, and the perfect quiet of Gaul 
after the completion of the conquest. . . . 

" It was by accident that Csesar took up the profession of a sol- 
dier; yet perhaps no commander who ever lived showed greater 
military genius. 

"The conquest of Gaul was effected by a force numerically 
insignificant, which was worked with the precision of a machine. 
The variety of uses to which it was capable of being turned implied, 
in the first place, extraordinary forethought in the selection of 
materials. Men whose nominal duty was merely to fight were 
engineers, architects, mechanics of the highest order. In a few 
hours they could extemporize an impregnable fortress on an open 
hillside. They bridged the Rhine in a week. They built a fleet 
in a month. The legions at Alesia held twice their number pinned 
within their works, while they kept at bay the whole force of 
insurgent Gaul, entirely by scientific superiority. . , . 



THE HISTORICAL CMSAR 2V 

"He was rash, but with a calculated rashness, which the event 
never failed to justify. His greatest successes were due to the 
rapidity of his movements, which brought him on the enemy 
before they heard of his approach. He traveled sometimes a 
hundred miles a day, reading or writing in his carriage, through 
countries without roads, and crossing rivers without bridges. No 
obstacles stopped him when he had a definite end in view. In 
battle he sometimes rode; but he was more often on foot, bare- 
headed, and in a conspicuous dress, that he might be seen and 
recognized. . . . 

" In discipHne he was lenient to ordinary faults, and not careful 
to make curious inquiries into such things. He hked his men to 
enjoy themselves. Military mistakes in his officers too he always 
endeavored to excuse, never blaming them for misfortunes, unless 
there had been a defect of courage as well as judgment. Mutiny 
and desertion only he never overlooked. And thus no general 
was ever more loved by, or had greater power over, the army which 
served under him. He brought the insurgent tenth legion into 
submission by a single word. When the civil war began and 
Labienus left him, he told all his officers who had served under 
Pompey that they were free to follow if they wished. Not another 
man forsook him. 

"His leniency to the Pompeian faction may have been politic, 
but it arose also from the disposition of the man. Cruelty origi- 
nates in fear, and Csesar was too indifferent to death to fear any- 
thing. So far as his public action was concerned he betrayed no 
passion save hatred of injustice; and he moved through life calm 
and irresistible, like a force of nature. 

"Cicero has said of Caesar's oratory that he surpassed those 
who had practised no other art. His praise of him as a man ot 
letters is yet more delicately and gracefully emphatic. Most ot 
his writings are lost; but there remain seven books of commen- 
taries on the wars in Gaul (the eighth was added by another hand) , 
and three books upon the civil war, containing an account of its 
causes and history. Of these it was that Cicero said, in an admi- 
rable image, that fools might think to improve on them, but that 



28 INTRODUCTION 

no wise man would try it; they were nudi omni ornatu orationiSy 
tanquam veste detractd — bare of ornament, the dress of style dis- 
pensed with, like an undraped human figure, perfect in all its 
lines as nature made it. . . . About himself and his own exploits 
there is not one word of self-complacency or self-admiration. In 
his writings, as in his life, Caesar is always the same — direct, 
straightforward, unmoved save by occasional tenderness, describ- 
ing with unconscious simplicity how the work which had been 
forced upon him was accomplished. 

"He wrote with extreme rapidity in the intervals of other 
labor; yet there is not a word misplaced, not a sign of haste any- 
where, save that the conclusion of the Gallic war was left to be 
supplied by a weaker hand. The commentaries, as an historical 
narrative, are as far superior to any other Latin composition of 
the kind as the person of Caesar himself stands out among the rest 
of his contemporaries." — Froude, Ccesar: a Sketch. 



SHAKESPEARE'S GRAMMAR AND VERSIFICATION 

Shakespeare lived at a time when the grammar and vocabu 
lary of the EngHsh language were in a state of transition. Various 
points were not yet settled; and so Shakespeare's grammar is not 
only somewhat different from our own but is by no means uni- 
form in itself. In the Elizabethan age, " almost any part of speech 
can be used as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used 
as a verb, ' They askance their eyes ' ; as a noun, ' the backward and 
abysm of time '; or as an adjective, ' a seldom pleasure.' Any noun, 
adjective, or intransitive verb can be used as a transitive verb. 
You can 'happy' your friend, 'malice' or 'foot' your enemy, or 
'fall' an axe on his neck. An adjective can be used as an adverb; 
and you can speak and act 'easy,' 'free,' 'excellent'; or as a noun, 
and you can talk of 'fair' instead of 'beauty,' and 'a pale' instead 
of 'a paleness.' Even the pronouns are not exempt from these 
metamorphoses. A ' he ' is used for a man, and a lady is described 
by a gentleman as 'the fairest she he has yet beheld.' In the 
second place, every variety of apparent grammatical inaccuracy 
meets us. He for him, him for he; spoke and took for spoken and 
taken; plural nominatives with singular verbs; relatives omitted 
where they are now considered necessary; unnecessary antece- 
dents inserted; shall for will, should for would, would for wish; to 
omitted after I ought, inserted after I durst; double negatives; 
double comparatives ('more better,' etc.) and superlatives; such 
followed by which, that by as, as used for as if; that for so that; and 
lastly some verbs apparently with two nominatives, and others 
without any nominative at all." — Dr. Abbott's Shakespearian 
Grammar. 

. Shakespeare's plays are written mainly in what is known as 
blank verse; but they contain a number of riming Unes, and a con- 

29 



30 INTRODUCTION 

siderable number of prose lines. As a rule, rime is much commoner 
in the earher than in the later plays. Thus, Love's Labour 's Lost 
contains nearly 1100 riming lines, while (if we except the songs) A 
Winter's Tale has none. The Merchant of Venice has 124. 

In speaking, we lay a stress on particular syllables; this stress is 
called accent. When the words of a composition are so arranged 
that the accent recurs at regular intervals, the composition is said 
to be rhythmical. In blank verse the lines have usually ten syllables, 
of which the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth are accented. 
The line consists, therefore, of five parts, each of which contains 
an unaccented syllable, followed by an accented one, as in the 
word attend. Each of these five parts forms what is called a 
foot or measure; and the five together form a pentameter. Pentam^ 
eter is a Greek word signifying "five measures." This is the 
usual form of a line of blank verse. But a long poem composed 
entirely of such lines would be monotonous, and for the sake of 
variety several important modifications have been introduced. 

(a) After the tenth syllable, one or two unaccented syllables 
are sometimes added; as — ■ 

" Me- thought] you said|you neilther lend[nor bor[row." 

(6) In any foot the accent may be shifted from the second to the 
£rst syllable, provided two accented syllables do not come to- 
gether; as — 

"Pluck' thelyoung suck'ling cubs'jfrom the'Ishe bear'." 

(c) In such words as yesterday, voluntary, honesty, the syllables 
-day, -ta-, and -ty falling in the place of the accent are, for the pur- 
poses of the verse, regarded as truly accented; as — • 

"Bars' mejthe right'lof vol'-lun-ta'lry choos'ling." 

(d) Sometimes we have a succession of accented syllables; this 
occurs with monosyllabic feet only; as — 

** Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark." 



GRAMMAR AND VERSIFICATION 31 

(e) Sometimes, but more rarely, two or even three unaccented 
syllables occupy the place of one; as — • 

"He says|he does,\be-ing then|most flatlter-ed." 

(/) Lines may have any number of feet from one to six. 

Finally, Shakespeare adds much to the pleasing variety of his 
blank verse by placing the pauses in different parts of the line 
(especially after the second or third foot), instead of placing them 
all at the end of lines, as was the earlier custom. 

In some cases the rhythm requires that what we usually pro- 
nounce as one syllable shall be divided into two, as fi-er (fire), 
su-er (sure), mi-el (mile), etc.; too-elve (twelve), jaw-ee (joy). 
Similarly, she-on (-tion or -sion). 

It is very important that the student should have plenty of 
ear-training by means of formal scansion. This will greatly 
assist him in his reading. 



PLAN OF STUDY 

To attain the standard of "Perfect Possession," the reader 
ought to have an intimate and ready knowledge of the subject. 

The student ought, first of all, to read the play as a pleasure; 
then to read it again, with his mind on the characters and the 
Dlot; and lastly, to read it for the meanings, grammar, etc. 

With the help of the following outline, he can easily draw up 
for himself short examination papers (1) on each scene, (2) on 
each act, (3) on the whole play. 

1. The plot and story of the play. 

(a) The general plot. 
(6) The special incidents. 

2. The characters. 

AbiHty to give a connected account of all that is done, and 
most that is said by each cliaracter in the play. 

3. The influence and interplay of the characters upon one 

another. 

(a) Relation of A to B and of B to A. 

(6) Relation of A to C and D. 

4. Complete possession of the language. 

(a) Meanings of words. 

(6) Use of old words, or of words in an old meaning. 

(c) Grammar. 

(d) AbiHty to quote lines to illustrate a grammatical point. 

5. Power to reproduce, or quote. 

(a) What was said by A or B on a particular occasion. 

(6) What was said by A in reply to B. 

(c) What argument was used by C at a particular juncture. 

(d) To quote a line in instance of an idiom or of a peculiar 

meaning. 

32 



PLAN OF STUDY 33 

6. Power to locate. 

(o) To attribute a line or statement to a certain person 

on a certain occasion. 
(6) To cap a line. 
(c) To fill in the right word or epithet. 



THE TRAGEDY OF 
JULIUS CiESAR 



DRAMATIS PERSON.^ 



} 



Julius C^sar. 

octavius c^sar, 

Marcus Antonius, 

M. ^Emilius Lepidus 

Cicero, 1 

Pub LI us, > Senators. 

PopiLius Lena, J 

Marcus Brutus, 

Cassius, 

Casca, 

CiNNA, 

Trebonius, 

LiGARIUS, 

Decius Brutus, 
Metellus Cimber, ^ 

Jl^Zlhs. \ ^"'«'-- 

Artemidorus of Cnidos, a teacher of Rhetoric. 
CiNNA, a Poet; another Poet; a Soothsayer. 



Triumvirs after the death of Julius Caesar. 



>- Conspirators against Julius Caesar. 



LUCILIUS, 
TiTINIUS, 

Messala, 

Young Cato, 

volumnius, 

Varro, 

Clitus, 

Claudius, 

Strato, 

Lucius, 

Dardanius, 

PiNDARus, Servant to Cassius, 

Calpurnia, wife to Caesar. 
Portia, wife to Brutus. 



X Friends to Brutus and Cassius. 



> Servants to Brutus. 



Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, etc. 

SCENE — Rome; Sardis; and near Philippi. 
36 



THE TRAGEDY OF 
JULIUS CiESAR 

ACT I 

Scene I 
Rome. A street 
Enter Flavius, Marullus, and a rabble of Citizens. 
Flav. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you 
home. 
Is this a hoHday? What! know you not, 
Being mechanical, you ought not walk, 
Upon a laboring-day without the sign 
Of your profession? — Speak, what trade art thou? 

1 Cit. Why, sir, a carpenter. 

Mar. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule? 
What dost thou with thy best apparel on? — 
You, sir; what trade are you? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, lo 
I am but, as you would say, a cobblan.. 

Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me di- 
rectly. 
2 Cit. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a 
safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of 
bad soles. 

37 



38 JULIUS CAESAR [Act i 

Mar. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty 
knave, what trade? 

2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with^ 
me; yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you. 

Mar. What meanest thou by .that? Mend me, 20 
thou saucy fellow? 

2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you. 

Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: 
I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's 
matters; but withal I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to 
old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover 
them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat's- 
leather have gone upon my handiwork. 

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day? 30 
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? 

2 Cit. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get 
myself into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make 
holiday, to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph. 

Mar. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings 
he home? 
What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels? 
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless 

things ! 
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, 
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 4© 

Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, 
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops. 
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 



Scene 1] JULIUS CAESAR 39 

The livelong day, with patient expectation, 

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: 

And when you saw his chariot but appear, 

Have you not made an universal shout. 

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks 

To hear the replication of your sounds, 

Made in her concave shores? 50 

And do you now put on your best attire? 

And do you now cull out a holiday? 

And do you now strew flowers in his way 

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? 

Be gone! 

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 

That needs must light on this ingratitude. 

Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this 
fault. 
Assemble all the poor men of your sort; 6o 

Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 
Into the channel, till the lowest stream 
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. 

[Exeunt Citizens. 
See, whether their basest metal be not moved; 
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 
Go you down that way towards the Capitol; 
This way will I. Disrobe the images. 
If you do find them decked with ceremonies. 

Mar. May we do so? 
You know it is the feast of Lupercal. 70 

Flav. It is no matter; let no images 



40 JULIUS C^SAR [Act i 

Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about, 

And drive away the vulgar from the streets : 

So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 

These growing feathers plucked from Csesar's wing 

Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, 

Who else would soar above the view of men. 

And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt, 

Scene II 

The same. A public place 

Enter, in procession, with music, C^sar; Antony, 

for the course; Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, 

Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca; a great 

crowd following; among them a Soothsayer. 

CcBS. Calpurnia! 

Casca. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks. [Music ceases. 

CcBS. Calpurnia! 

Cal. Here, my lord. 

CcBS. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, 
When he doth run his course. — Antonius, — 

Ant. Caesar, my lord. 

Cces. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, ' 
To touch Calpurnia: for our elders say. 
The barren, touched in this holy chase, ic 

Shake off their sterile curse. 

Ant. I shall remember: 

When Caesar says "Do this," it is performed. 

Cobs. Set on; and leave no ceremony out. [Music. 

Sooth. Caesar! 

Cces. Ha! who calls? 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 41 . 

Casca. Bid every noise be still : — peace yet again. 

[Music ceases. 

Cces. Who is it in the press that calls on me? 
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, 
Cry ^'Caesar." Speak; Csesar is turned to hear. 

Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 

Cobs. ' What man is that? 20 

Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of 
March. 

Cces. Set him before me; let me see his face. 

Cas. Fellow, come from the throng: look upon 
Csesar. 

Cces. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once. 
again. 

Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 

Cobs. He is a dreamer; let us leave him; — pass. 
[Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius. 

Cas. Will you go see the order of the course? 

Bru. Not I. 

Cas. I pray you, do. 

Bru. I am not gamesome : I do lack some part 3in 
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; 
I'll leave you. 

Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late: 
I have not from your eyes that gentleness 
And show of love as I was wont to have: 
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 
Over your friend that loves you. 

Bru, Cassius, 



42 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

Be not deceived: if I have veiled my look, 

I turn the trouble of my countenance 4© 

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am, 

Of late, with passions of some difference. 

Conceptions only proper to myself, 

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors: 

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved, — 

Among which number, Cassius, be you one, — 

Nor construe any further my neglect, 

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war. 

Forgets the shows of love to other men. 

Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your 
passion; so 

By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried 
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face? 

Bru. No, Cassius: for the eye sees not itself 
But by reflection, by some other things. 

Cas. 'Tis just; 
And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 
That you have no such mirrors as will turn 
Your hidden worthiness into your eye. 
That you might see your shadow. I have heard, 60 
Where many of the best respect in Rome, 
Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus, 
And groaning underneath this age's yoke. 
Have wished that noble Brutus had his eyes. 

Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, 
Cassius, 
That you would have me seek into myself 



Scene 2] • JULIUS CMSAR 43 

For that which is not in me? 

Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear: 
And, since you know you cannot see yourself 
So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 70 

Will modestly discover to yourself 
That of yourself which you yet know not of. 
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus: 
Were I a common laugher, or did use 
To stale with ordinary oaths my love 
To every new protester: if you know 
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, 
Arid after scandal them; or if you know 
That I profess myself in banqueting 
To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. -go 

[Flourish and shout. 

Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear the 
people 
Choose Cffisar for their king. 

Cas. Ay, do you fear it? 

Then must I think you would not have it so. 

Bru. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well. — 
But wherefore do you hold me here so long? 
What is it that you would impart to me? 
If it be aught toward the general good, 
Set honor in one eye, and death i' the other, 
And I will look on both indifferently: 
For let the gods so speed me as I love 90 

The name of honor more than I fear death. 

Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
As well as I do know your outward favor. 



44 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

Well, honor is the subject of my story. — 

I cannot tell what you and other men 

Think of this life; but, for my single self, 

I had as lief not be as live to be 

In awe of such a thing as I myself. 

I was born free as Caesar; so were you: 

We both have fed as well; and we can both loo 

Endure the winter's cold as well as he: 

For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, 

Caesar said to me, " Barest thou, Cassius, now 

Leap in with me into this angry flood. 

And swim to yonder point?'' — Upon the word, 

Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, 

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did. 

The torrent roared ; and we did buffet it 

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside no 

And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 

But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 

Caesar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'* 

I, as iEneas, our great ancestor. 

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 

Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 

Is now become a god; and Cassius is 

A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. im 

He had a fever when he was in Spain, 

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 

How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake: 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 45 ^ 

His coward lips did from their color fly; 
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world 
Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan: 
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
Alas! it cried, '^Give me some drink, Titinius," 
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 130 

A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world, 
J And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish. 

Bru. Another general shout! 
I do believe that these applauses are 
For some new honors that are heaped on Caesar. 
Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow 

world, 
Like a Colossus; and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonorable graves. 140 

_Men at some time are masters of their fates: 
_^he fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,, 

But in ourselves, that we are underlings. . 

Brutus and Coesar: what should be in that Cwsarf 
Why should that name be sounded more than 

yours? 
Write them together, yours is as fair a name; 
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; 
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em, 
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar. [Shout. 
Now in the names of all the gods at once, iso 

Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 



46 JULIUS C^SAR [Act i 

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed! 
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! 
When went there by an age, since the great flood. 
But it was famed with more than with one man? 
When could they say, till now, that talked of 

Rome, 
That her wide walls encompassed but one man? 
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, 
When there is in it but one only man. 
O! you and I have heard our fathers say leo 

There was a Brutu:: once that would have brooked 
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, 
As easily as a king. 

Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous: 
What you would work me to, I have some aim; 
How I have thought of this, and of these times, 
I shall recount hereafter; for this present, 
I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 
Be any further moved. What you have said 
I will consider; what you have to say 170 

I will with patience hear: and find a time 
Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this: 
Brutus had rather be a villager 
Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
Under these hard conditions as this time 
Is like to lay upon us. 

Cas. I am glad that my weak words 
Have struck but thus much show of fire from 
Brutus. 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 47 

Reenter CvESAr and his Train 

Bru. The games are done, and Caesar is returning, iso 

Cas. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; 
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
What hath proceeded worthy note to-day. 

Bru. I will do so. — But look you, Cassius, 
The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, 
And all the rest look like a chidden train: 
Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero 
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, 
As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
Being crossed in conference by some senators. 190 

Cas. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 

Cces. AntoniusI 

Ant, Caesar? 

Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat; 
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: 
_Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; 
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. 

Ant. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous; 
He is a noble Roman, and well given. 

Cces. Would he were fatter: — but I fear him not: 20Q 
Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much; 
He is a great observer, and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, 
As thou dost, Antony: he hears no music: 
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort 



48 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit 

That could be moved to smile at any thing. 

Such men as he be never at hearths ease 210 

Whiles they behold a greater than themselves; 

And therefore are they very dangerous. 

I rather tell thee what is to be feared 

Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar. 

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 

And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. 

[Exeunt C^sar and his train. Casca stays. 

Casca. You pulled me by the cloak: would you 
speak with me? 

Bru. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanced to- 
day. 
That Caesar looks so sad? 22c 

Casca. Why, you were with him, were you not? 

Bru. I should not then ask Casca what had 
chanced. 

Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him: and 
being offered him, he put it by with the back of his 
hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting. 

Bru. What was the second noise for? 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Cas. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry 
for? . 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Bru. Was the crown offered him thrice? 230 

Casca. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, 
every time gentler than other; and at every putting 
by, mine honest neighbors shouted. 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAH 49 

Cas, Who offered him the crown? 

Casca. Why, Antony. 

Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. 

Casca. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner 
of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw 
Mark Antony offer him a crown; — yet, ^twas not a 
crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets; — and, as 240 
I told you, he put it by once ; but, for all that, to my 
thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he 
offered it to him again; then he put it by again: 
but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay his 
fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; 
he put it the third time by : and still as he refused it, 
the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chopped 
hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and 
uttered such a deal of stinking breath because 
Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked 25» 
Caesar; for he swounded, and fell down at it: and 
for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of 
opening my lips and receiving the bad air. 

Cas. But, soft, I pray you: what, did Caesar 
swound? 

Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and 
foamed at mouth, and was speechless. 

Bru. 'Tis very like: he hath the falling-sickness. 

Cas. No, Caesar hath it not; but you and I, 
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. 

Casca. I know not what you mean by that; but, I 26(j 
am sure Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did 
not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased 



50 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

and displeased them, as they used to do the players 
in the theatre, I am no true man. 

Bru. What said he when he came unto himself? 

Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he per- 
ceived the common herd was glad he refused the 
crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered 
them his throat to cut. — An I had been a man of 
any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a 270 
word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. 
And so he fell. When 'he came to himself again, he 
said, if he had done or said any thing amiss, he de- 
sired their worships to think it was his infirmity. 
Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried " Alas, 
good soul! " — and forgave him with all their hearts: 
but there's no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar 
had stabbed their mothers, they would have done 
no less. 

Bru. And after that he came, thus sad, away? 28O 

Casca. Ay. 

Cas. Did Cicero say any thing? 

Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek. 

Cas. To what effect? 

Casca. Nay, an I tell you that I'll ne'er look you 
i' the face again: but those that understood him 
smiled at one another, and shook their heads : but, 
for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell 
you more news too : Marullus and Flavins, for pull- 
ing scarfs off Csesar's images, are put to silence. 290 
Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I 
could remember it. 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 51 

Cas. Will you sup with me to-night, Gasca? 

Casca. No, I am promised forth. 

Cas. Will you dine with me to-morrow? 

Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and 
your dinner worth the eating. 

Cas. Good; I will expect you. 

Casca. Do so; farewell both. [Exit Casca. 

Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be! 3oo 
He was quick mettle when he went to school. 

Cas. So is he now, in execution 
Of any bold or noble enterprise. 
However he puts on this tardy form. 
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit. 
Which gives men stomach to digest his words 
With better appetite. 

Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you: 
To-morrow, if you please to speak with me, 
I will come home to you; or, if you will, 310 

Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 

Cas. I will do so; — till then, think of the world. 

[Exit Brutus. 
Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see 
Thy honorable metal may be wrought 
From that it is disposed: therefore 'tis meet 
That noble minds keep ever with their likes: 
For who so firm that cannot be seduced? 
Caesar doth bear me hard: but he loves Brutus: 
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, 
He should not humor me. I will this night, 320 

In several hands, in at his windows throw, 



52 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

As if they came from several citizens, . 

Writings all tending to the great opinion 

That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely 

Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at; 

And, after this, let Caesar seat him sure; 

For we will shake him, or worse days endure. [Exit. 

Scene III 
The same. A street 
Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, 
Casca, with his sword drawn, and Cicero 
Cic. Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home? 
Why are you breathless? and why stare you so? 
Casca. Are not you moved, when all the sway of 
earth 
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, 
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 
Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen 
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, 
To be exalted with the threatening clouds: 
But never till to-night, never till now. 
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. lo 

Either there is a civil strife in heaven. 
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 
Incenses them to send destruction. 

Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful? 
Casca. A common slave — you know him well by 
sight — 
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 
Like twenty torches joined; and yet his hand, 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 53 

Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. 

Besides — I have not since put up my sword — 

Against the Capitol I met a lion, > %o 

Who glared upon me, and went surly by 

Without annoying me : and there were drawn 

Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women. 

Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw 

Men all in fire walk up and down the streets. 

And yesterday the bird of night did sit, '^^^ t^t o^ 

Even at noonday, upon the market-place, ' 

Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies 

Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 

''These are their reasons, — they are natural;" so 

For, I believe, they are portentous things 

Unto the climate that they point upon. 

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time: 
But men may construe things after their fashion. 
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 
Comes CsBsar to the Capitol to-morrow? 

Casca. He doth; for he did bid Antonius 
Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. 

Cic. Good night, then, Casca: this disturbed sky 
Is not to walk in. 

Casca. Farewell, Cicero. [Exit Cicero. 4o 

Enter Cassius 

Cas. Who 's there? 

Casca. A Roman. 

Cas, Casca, by your voice. 

Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is 
this! 



54 JULIUS C^SAR [Act i 

Cas. A very pleasing night to honest men. 

Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so? 

Cas. Those that have known the earth so full of 
faults. 
For my part, I have walked about the streets, 
Submitting me unto the perilous night; 
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see. 
Have bared my bosom to the thUnder-stone : 
And when the cross blue lightning seemed to open so 
The breast of heaven, I did present myself 
Even in the aim and very flash of it. 

Casca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the 
heavens? 
It is the part of men to fear and tremble. 
When the most mighty gods, by tokens, send 
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. 

Cas. You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life 
That should be in a Roman you do want. 
Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze 
And put on fear and case yourself in wonder, 60 

To see the strange impatience of the heavens: 
But, if you would consider the true cause ■ 
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, 
Why birds and beasts from quality and kind, 
Why old men fool and children calculate; 
Why all these things change from their ordinance, 
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties, 
To monstrous quality; — why you shall find 
That heaven hath infused them with these spirits, 
To make them instruments of fear and warning 7Q 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 55 

Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca, 

Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night, 

That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars 

As doth the lion in the Capitol; 

A man no mightier than thyself or me 

In personal action; yet prodigious grown 

And fearful, as these strange eruptions are. 

Casca. Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, 
Cassius? 

Cas. Let it be who it is: for Romans now 
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; so 

But, woe the while ! our fathers' minds are dead, 
And we are governed with our mothers' spirits; 
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. 

Casca. Indeed, they say the senators to-morrow 
Mean to establish Caesar as a king: 
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land, 
In every place, save here in Italy. 

Cas. I know where I will wear this dagger then; 
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius. 
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; 90 
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat: 
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass. 
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit: 
But life, being weary of these wordly bars, 
Never lacks power to dismiss itself. 
If I know this, know all the world besides, 
That part of tyranny that I do bear 
I can shake off at pleasure. [Thunder still. 



56 JULIUS C^SAR [Act i 

Casca. So can I: 

So every bondman in his own hand bears ic^ 

The power to cancel his captivity. 

Cas. And why should Csesar be a tyrant, then? 
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf, 
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: 
He were no lion, were not Romans hijids. 
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire 
Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome, 
What rubbish, and what pff^l, when it serves 
For the base matter to illuminate 
So vile a thing as Cassar! But, grief, no 

Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this 
Before a willing bondman: then I knov/ 
My answer must be made: but I am armed. 
And dangers are to me indifferent. 

Casca. You speak to Casca; and to such a man 
That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand: 
Be factious for redress of all these griefs; 
And I will set this foot of mine as far 
As who goes farthest. 

Cas. There 's a bargain made. 

Now know you, Casca, I have moved already 120 

Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans 
To undergo with me an enterprise 
Of honorable-dangerous consequence; 
And I do know by this they stay for me 
In Pompey's porch: for now, this fearful night, 
There is no stir or walking in the streets; 
And the complexion of the element 



Scene 3] JULIUS CAESAR 57 

In favor 's like the work we have in hand, 
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. 

Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in 

haste. 130 

Cas, Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait; 
He is a friend. 

Enter Cinna 

Cinna, where haste you so? 

Cin. To find out you. Who's that? Metellus 
Cimber? 

Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate 
To our attempts. Am I not stayed for, Cinna? 

Cin. I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this ! 
There 's two or three of us have seen strange sights. 

Cas. Am I not stayed for? Tell me. 

Cin. Yes, you are. 

O Cassius, if you could 
But win the noble Brutus to our party — i40 

Cas. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this 
j^apei-j,. 
And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, 
Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this 
In at his window: set this up with wax 
Upon old Brutus' statue; all this done. 
Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find 

us. 
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there? 

Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone 
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 
And so bestow these papers as you bade me. i50 



68 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i 

Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre. 

[Exit CiNNA. 
Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day, 
See Brutus at his house : three parts of him 
Is ours already; and the man entire, 
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours. 

Casca. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts: 
And that which would appear offence in us, 
His countenance, like richest alchemy, 
Will change to virtue and to worthiness. 

Cas. Him and his worth and our great need of 
him, 160 

You have right well conceited. Let us go. 
For it is after midnight; and ere day 
We will awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt. 



ACT II 

Scene I 
Rome. Brutus' s orchard 
Enter Brutus 
Bru. What, Lucius! ho! 
I cannot, by the progress of the stars, 
Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say! 
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly. 
When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, 
Lucius ! 

Enter Lucius 
Luc. Called you, my lord? 
Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius: 
When it is lighted, come and call me here. 

Luc.l will, my lord. [Exit. 

Bru. It must be by his death: and, for my part, i(> 
I know no personal cause to spurn at him, 
But for the general. He would be crowned: — 
How that might change his nature, there 's the 

question. 
It is the bright day that brings forth thejtdder; 
And that craves wary walking. Crown him? — 

that ; — 
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 
That at his will he may do danger with. 

59 



60 JULIUS C^SAR [Act ii 

The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins 
Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar, 
I have not known when his affections swayed 20 

More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof 
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face: 
But when he once attains the upmost round 
He then unto the ladder turns his back. 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
By which he did ascend: so Caesar may; 
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 
Will bear no color for the thing he is, 
Fashion it thus : that what he is, augmented, 30 

Would run to these and these extremities : 
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg. 
Which hatched would, as his kind, grow mischiev- 
ous. 
And kill him in the shell. 

Reenter Lucius 

Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. 
Searching the window for a flint, I found 
This paper thus sealed up; and I am sure 
It did not lie there when I went to bed. 

[Gives him the letter. 

Bru. Get you to bed again; it is not day. 
Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March? 4o 

Luc. I know not, sir. 

Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. 

Luc. I will, sir. \Exit. 



Scene 1] ' JULIUS C^SAR 61 

Bru. The exhalations whizzing in the air 
Give so much light that I may read by them. 

[Opens the letter, and reads. 
Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake, and see thyself. 
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress! — 
Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake! — 

Such instigations have been often dropped 
Where Ihave_took them up. si? 

"Shall Rome, &c.^' Thus must I piece it out: 
Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What! 

Rome? 
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome 
The Tarquin drive, when he was called a king. 
''Speak, strike, redress!" — Am I entreated 
To speak and strike? Rome! I make thee 

promise. 
If the redress will follow, thou receivest 
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus ! 

Reenter Lucius 
Luc. Sir, March is wasted fifteen days. 

[Knocking within. 
Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate: somebody 
knocks. [Exit Lucius. 60 

Since Cassius first did whet me against Csesar, 
I have not slept. 

Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, all the interim is ^^^ 

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: '^ 

The ^ejwus s-jjd the mortal instruments 



62 JULIUS C^SAR [Act ii 

Are then in council; and the state of man, 
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection. 

Reenter Lucius 

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, 70 
Who doth desire to see you. 

Bru. Is he alone? 

Luc. No, sir, there are moe with him. 

Bru. Do you know them? 

Luc. No, sir; their hats are plucked about their 
ears, 
And half their faces buried in their cloaks, 
That by no means I may discover them 
By any mark of favor. 

Bru. Let 'em enter. 

[Exit Lucius. 
They are the faction. O Conspiracy! 
Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, 
When evils are most free? O, then, by day 
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough so 

To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, Con- 
spiracy; 
Hide it in smiles and affability: 
For if thou path, thy native semblance on. 
Not Erebus itself were dim enough 
To hide thee from prevention. 

Enter Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus 
CiMBER, and Trebonius 
Cas. I think we are too bold upon your rest: 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 63 

Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you? 

Bru. I have been up this hour; awake all night. 
Know I these men that come along with you? 

Cas. Yes, every man of them; and no man here go 
But honors you: and every one doth wish 
You had but that opinion of yourself 
Which every noble Roman bears of you. 
This is Trebonius. 

Bru. He is welcome hither. 

Cas. This, Decius Brutus. 

Bru. He is welcome too. 

Cas. This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus 
Cimber. 

Bru. They are all welcome. 
What watchful cares do interpose themselves 
Betwixt your eyes and night? 

Cas. Shall I entreat a word? [They whisper, loo 

Dec. Here lies the east: doth not the day break 
here? 

Casca. No. 

Cin. O, pardon, sir, it doth: and yon gray lines 
That fret the clouds are messengers of day. 

Casca. You shall confess that you are both 
deceived. 
Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises; 
Which is a great way growing on the south. 
Weighing the youthful season of the year. 
Some two months hence up higher toward the nerth 
He first presents his fire ; and the high east ii« 

Stands, as the Capitol, directly here. 



64 JULIUS CMSAR [Act n 

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. 

Cas. And let us swear our resolution. 

Bru. No, not an oath: if not the face of men, 
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse, — 
If these be motives weak, break off betimes, 
And every man hence to his idle bed; 
So let high-sighted tyranny range on. 
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these, 
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 120 

To kindle cowards, and to steel with valor 
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen. 
What need we any spur but our own cause 
To prick us to redress? what other bond 
Than secret Romans that have spoke the word, 
And will not palter? and what other oath 
Than honesty to honesty engaged 
That this shall be, or we will fall for it? 
Swear priests, and cowards, and men- cautelous. 
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 130 

That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear 
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain 
The even virtue of our enterprise, 
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits. 
To think that or our cause or our performance 
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood 
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, 
Is guilty of a several bastaxdy, 
If he do break the smallest particle 
Of any promise that hath passed from him. i40 

Cas. But what of Cicero? shall we sound him? 



Scene 1] JULIUS CJESAR 65 

I think he will stand very strong with us. 

Casca. Let us not leave him out. 

Cin. No, by no means. 

V Met. 0, let us have him; for his silver hairs 
Will purchase us a good opinion, 
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds: 
It shall be said his judgment ruled our hands; 
Our youth and wildness shall no whit appear, 
But all be buried in his gravity. 

Bru. O, name him not; let us not break with him; iso 
For he will never follow any thing 
That other men begin. 

Cas. Then leave him out. 

Casca. Indeed, he is not fit. 

Dec. Shall no man else be touched but only 
Csesar? 

Cas. DeciuS; well urged: — I think it is not meet 
Mark Antony, so well beloved of Csesar, 
Should outlive Csesar: we shall find of him 
A shrewd contriver; and you know his means, 
If he improve them, may well stretch so far 
As to annoy us all: which to prevent, -leo 

Let Antony and Csesar fall together. 

Bru. Our course 'will seem too bloody, Caius 
Cassius, 
To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs, 
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards: 
For Antony is but a limb of Csesar. 
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. 
We all stand up against the spirit of Csesar; 



66 JULIUS CMSAR [Act ii 

And in the spirit of men there is no blood : 
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas, 
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends, 
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; 
Let 's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, 
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds: 
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do. 
Stir up their servants to an act of rage, 
And after seem to chide them. This shall make 
Our purpose necessary, and not envious: 
Which so appearing to the common eyes. 
We shall be called purgers, not murderers. 
And for Mark Antony, think not of him; 
For he can do no more than Caesar's arm. 
When Caesar's head is off. 

Cas. Yet I fear him: 

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar — 

Bru. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him: 
\i he love Caesar, all that he can do 
Is to himself — take thought, and die for Caesar: . 
And that were much he should; for he is given 
To sports, to wildness, and much company. 

Treh. There is no fear in him; let him not die; 
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. 

[Clock strikes, 

Bru. Peace! count the clock. 

Cas. The clock hath stricken three. 

Treh. 'Tis time to part. 

Cas. But it is doubtful yet 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 67 

Whether Caesar will come forth to-day, or no: 

For he is superstitious grown of late; 

Quite from the main opinion he held once 

Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies; 

It may be these apparent prodigies, o*^— 

The unaccustomed terror of this night, 

And the persuasion of his augurers 200 

May hold him from the Capitol to-day. 

Dec. Never fear that : if he be so resolved, 
I can o'ersway him: for he loves to hear 
That unicorns may be betrayed with trees. 
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers: 
But when I tell him he hates flatterers. 
He says he does; being then most flattered. 
Let me work: 

For I can give his humor the true bent; 210 

And I will bring him to the Capitol. 

Cas. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. 

Bru. By the eighth hour; is that the uttermost? 

Cin. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then. 

Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard. 
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey; 
I wonder none of you have thought of him. 

Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him; 
He loves me well, and I have given him reasons; 
Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. 220 

Cas. The morning comes upon us: we'll leave 
you, Brutus: — 
And, friends, disperse yourselves: but all remember 



68 JULIUS CMSAR [Act ii 

What you have said, and show yourselves true 
Romans. 
Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily; 
Let not our looks put on our purposes; 
But bear it as our Roman actors do. 
With untired spirits and formal constancy: 
And so, good morrow to you every one. 

[Exeunt all hut Beutus. 
Boy! Lucius! — Fast asleep? It is no matter; 
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber: 230 

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies. 
Which busy care draws in the brains of men: 
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. 

Enter Portia 

Por. Brutus, my lord ! 

Bru. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise 
you now? 
It is not for your health thus to commit 
Your weak condition to the raw cold morning. 

Por. Nor for yours neither. You 've ungently, 
Brutus, 
Stole from my bed: and yesternight, at supper, 
You suddenly arose and walked about, 
Musing and sighing, with your arms across: 240 

And when I asked you what the matter was. 
You stared upon me with ungentle looks: 
I urged you further; then you scratched your head, 
And too impatiently stamped with your foot: 
Yet I insisted, yet you answered not ; 




For. " Dear my Lord, 

Make me acquainted with your cause of grief." 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 69 

But with an angry wafture of your hand 

Gave sign for me to leave you: so I did; 

Fearing to strengthen that impatience 

Which seemed too much enkindled; and withal 

Hoping it was but an effect of humor, 250 

Which sometime hath his hour with every man. 

It will not let you eat nor talk nor sleep; 

And, could it work so much upon your shape 

As it hath much prevailed on your condition, 

I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 

Make me acquainted, with your cause of grief, . 

Bru. I am not well in health, and that is all. 

Por. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 
He would embrace the means to come by it. 

Bru. Why, so I do : — good Portia, go to bed. 260 

Por. Is Brutus sick? and is it physical 
To walk unbraced, and suck up the humors 
Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, 
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, 
To dare the vile contagion of the night, 
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus; 
You have some sick offence within your mind. 
Which, by the right and virtue of my place, 
I ought to know of: and, upon my knees, 270 

I charm you, by my once commended beauty, 
By all your vows of love, and that great vow 
Which did incorporate and make us one. 
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half. 
Why you are heavy; and what men to-night 



70 JULIUS CMSAR [Act ii 

Have had resort to you: for here have been 
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
Even from darkness. 

Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. 

For. I should not need, if you were gentle 

Brutus. 
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 28o 

Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
That appertain to you? Am I yourself 
But, as it were, in sort or limitation; 
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the 

suburbs 
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, 
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 

Bru. You are my true and honorable wife, 
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
That visit my sad heart. 29c 

For. If this were true, then should I know this 

secret. 
I grant I am a woman; but withal 
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife: 
I grant I am a woman; but withal 
A woman well-reputed,— Cato's daughter. 
Think you I am no stronger than my sex 
Being so fathered and so husbanded? 
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose them; 
I have made strong proof of my constancy. 
Giving myself a voluntary wound 300 

Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience, 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 71 

And not my husband's secrets? 

Bru. O ye gods, 

Render me worthy of this noble wife ! 

[Knocking within. 
Hark, hark! one knocks: Portia, go in a while; 
And by and by thy bosom shall partake 
The secrets of my heart. 
All my engagements I will construe to thee, 
All the charactery of my sad brows : — 
Leave me with haste. Lucius, who 's that knocks? 

[Exit Portia. 

Enter Lucius and Ligarius 

Luc. Here is a sick man that would speak with 
you. • 310 

Bru. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of. — 
Boy, stand aside. — Caius Ligarius! how? 

Lig. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble 
tongue. 

Bru. O, what a time have you chose out, brave 
Caius, 
To wear a kerchief ! Would you were not sick ! 

Lig. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand 
Any exploit worthy the name of honor. 

Bru. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, 
Had you a healthful ear to hear of it. 

Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before, 320 
I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome! 
Brave son, derived from honorable loins! 
Thou^ like an exorcist^ hast conjured up 



12 JULIUS C^SAR [Act u 

My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, 
And I will strive with things impossible; 
Yea, get the better of them. What 's to do? 

Bru. A piece of work that will make sick men 
whole. 

Lig. But are not some whole that we must make 
sick? 

Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, 
I shall unfold to thee, as we are going 330 

To whom it must be done. 
' Lig. Set on your foot; 

And with a heart new fired I follow you. 
To do I know not what : but it sufficeth 
That Brutus leads me on. 

Bru. Follow me then. [Exeunt. 

Scene II 

A room in Cesar's palace 

Thunder and lightning. Enter C^sar in his 
nightgown 

Cobs. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace 
to-night : 
Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 
'' Help, ho ! They murder Csesar ! " Who 's within? 
Enter a Servant 
Serv. My lord? 

C(ES. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 
And bring me their opinions of success. 

3erv. I will, my lord. [Exit, 



Scene 2] JULIUS CJESAR 73 

Enter Calpurnia 

Cal. What mean you, Csesar? Think you to 
walk forth? 
You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 

Cobs. Csesar shall forth: the things that threat- 
ened me 10 
Ne'er looked but on my back; when they shall see 
The face of Csesar, they are vanished. 

Cal. Csesar, I never stood on ceremonies, 
Yet now they fright me. There is one within, 
Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. 
A lioness hath whelped in the streets; 
And graves have yawned and yielded up their 

dead: 
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds. 
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war, 
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol: 
The noise of battle hurtled in the air, 
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan. 
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the 

streets. 
O Csesar ! these things are beyond all use. 
And I do fear them. 

CcBS. What can be avoided 

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods? 
Yet Csesar shall go forth: for these predictions 
Are to the world in general, as to Csesar. 

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; 30 




74 JULIUS CmSAR [Act ii 

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of 
princes. 
Cms. Cowards die many times before their deaths : 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
It seems to me most strange that men should fear; 
Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
Will come when it will come. 

Reenter Servant 

What say the augurers? 

Serv. They would not have you to stir forth 
to-day. 
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth. 
They could not find a heart within the beast. 4o 

Cms. The gods do this in shame of cowardice; 
Caesar should be a beast without a heart, 
If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
No, Caesar shall not: Danger knows full well 
That Caesar is more dangerous than he. 
We are two lions littered in one day, 
And I the elder and more terrible; 
And Caesar shall go forth. 

Cat. Alas, my lord 

Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. 
Do not go forth to-day: call it my fear 50 

That keeps you in the house, and not your own. 
We '11 send Mark Antony to the senate-house; 
And he shall say you are not well to-day: 
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.. 



Scene 2] JULIUS CJESAR -75 

CcBs. Mark Antony shall say I am not well: 
And, for thy humor, I will stay at home. 

Enter Decius 
Here 's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. 

Dec. Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy 
Caesar: 
I come to fetch you to the senate-house. 

Cces. And you are come in very happy time eo 

To bear my greeting to the senators. 
And tell them that I will not come to-day: 
Cannot, is false; and that L dare not, falser; 
I will not come to-day : tell them so, Decius. 

Cal. Say he is sick. 

Cces. Shall Csesar send a lie? 

Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far, 
To be afeared to tell graybeards the truth? 
Decius, go tell them Csesar will not come. 

Dec. Most mighty Csesar, let me know some 
cause, ■ 
Lest I be laughed at when I tell them so. 70 

Goes. The cause is in my will: I will not come; 
That is enough to satisfy the senate. 
But, for your private satisfaction, 
Because I love you, I will let you know. 
Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home: 
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua. 
Which, like a fountain with a hundred spouts, 
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans 
Came smiling^ and did bathe their hands in it. 



76 JULIUS C^SAR [Act ii 

And these does she apply for warnings and portents so 

Of evils imminent ; and on her knee 

Hath begged that I will stay at home to-day. 

Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted; 
It was a vision fair and fortunate: 
Your statue, spouting blood in many pipes, 
In which so many smiling Romans bathed/ 
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck 
Reviving blood; and that great men shall press 
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance. 
This by Calpurnia's dream is signified. 90 

Cces. And this way have you well expounded it. 

Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can 
say: 
And know it now; the senate have concluded 
To give, this day, a crown to mighty Caesar. 
If you shall send them word you will not come, 
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock 
Apt to be rendered, for some one to say 
^' Break up the senate till another time. 
When Csesar's wife shall meet with better dreams." 
If Gsesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 100 

"Lo, Cffisar is afraid?" 
Pardon me, Caesar: for my dear, dear love 
To your proceeding bids me tell you this; 
And reason to my love is liable. 

Cces. How foolish do your fears seem now, Cal- 
purnia ! 
I am ashamed I did yield to them. — 
Give me my robe, for I will go. — 



Scene 2] JULIUS C^SAR 77 

Enter Publius, BeutuS; LigariuS; Metellus, 

Casca, Trebonius, and Cinna 
And look where Publius is come to fetch me. 

Puh. Good morrow, Csesar. 

Cces. Welcome, Publius. — 

What; Brutus, are you stirred so early too? no 

Good morrow, Casca. — Caius Ligarius, 
C2esar was ne'er so much your enemy 
As that same ague which hath made you lean. — 
What is 't o'clock? 

Bru. Csesar, ^tis strucken eight. 

Cces. I thank you for your pains and courtesy. 

Enter Antony 
See! Antony, that revels long o' nights, 
Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony. 

Ant. So to most noble Csesar. 

Cces. Bid them prepare within: — 

I am to blame to be thus waited for. — 
Now, Cinna: now, Metellus: — what, Trebonius! 120 
I have an hour's talk in store for you; 
Remember that you call on me to-day: 
Be near me, that I may remember you. 

Treb. Csesar, I will: — [Aside.] and so near will I 
be. 
That your best friends shall wish I had been further. 

Cces. Good friends, go in, and taste some wine 
with me; 
And we; like friends, will straightway go togeth:er. 



78 JULIUS CMSAR [Act ii 

Bru, [Aside ^ That every like is not the same, O 
Caesar, 
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon ! [Exeunt 

Scene III 
A street near the Capitol 

Enter Artemidorus, reading a paper 

Art. 

Ccesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come 
not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Tre- 
bonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Dedus Brutus 
loves thee not; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. 
There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent 
against Ccesar. If thou beest not immortal, look about 
you: security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty 
gods defend thee! Thy lover, Artemidorus. 

Here will I stand till Caesar pass along, 
And as a suitor will I give him this. 
My heart laments that virtue cannot live 
Out of the teeth of emulation. 
If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayst live: 
If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive. [Exit. 

Scene IV 

Another part of the same street, before the house of 

Brutus 

Enter Portia and Lucius 

Por. I prithee, boy, run to the senate-house; 

Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. 



Scene 4] JULIUS C^SAR 79 

Why dost thou stay? 

Luc. To know my errand, madam. 

Por. I would have had thee there, and here 
again. 
Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there. — 

constancy, be strong upon my side! 

Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! 

1 have a man's mind, but a woman's might. 
How hard it is for women to keep counsel! — 
Art thou here yet? 

Luc. Madam, what should I do? lo 

Run to the Capitol, and nothing else? 
And so return to you, and nothing else? 

Por. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look 
well. 
For he went sickly forth: and take good note 
What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him. 
Hark, boy! what noise is that? 

Luc. I hear none, madam. 

Por. Prithee, listen well. 

I heard a bustling rumor, like a fray. 
And the wind brings it from the Capitol. 

Luc. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing. 20 

Enter the Soothsayer 
Por. Come hither, fellow: which way hast thou 

been? 
Sooth. At mine own house, good lady. 
Por. What is 't o'clock? 
Sooth. About the ninth hour, ladv. 



90 JULIUS CMSAR [Act ii 

Por. Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol? 

Sooth. Madam, not yet; I go to take my stand 
To see him pass on to the Capitol. 

Por. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou 
not? 

Sooth. That I have, lady: if it will please Caesar 
To be so good to Caesar as to hear me, 
I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 30 

Por. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended 
towards him? 

Sooth. None that I know will be, much that I 
fear may chance. 
Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow: 
The throng that follows Caesar at the heels, 
Of senators, of praetors, common suitors, 
Will crowd a feeble man almost to death: 
I'll get me to a place more void, and there 
Speak to great Caesar as he comes along. [Exit. 

Por. I must go in. — Ay me! how weak a thing 
The heart of woman is ! O Brutus ! 40 

The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise! 
Sure, the boy heard me: — Brutus hath a suit 
That Caesar will not grant. — O, I grow faint: — 
Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord; 
Say I am merry: come to me again. 
And bring: jtae word what he doth say to thee. 

[ExeunU 



dM'^' 



ACT III 

Scene I 
Rome. The Capitol; the Senate sitting 
A crowd of people in the street leading to the Capitol; 

among them Artemidorus and the Soothsayer. 

Flourish. Enter C^sar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, 

DeciuS; Metellus, Trebonius, Cinna, Antony, 

Lepidus, Popilius, Publius and others. 

Cces. The ides of March are corae. 

Sooth. Ay, Caesar; but not gone. 

Art. Hail, Caesar! Read this schedule. 

Dec. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, 
At your best leisure, this his humble suit. 

Art. O Caesar, read mine first; for mine 's a suit 
That touches Caesar nearer: read it, great Caesar. 

Cces. What touches us ourself shall be last served. 

Art. Delay not, Caesar; read it instantly. 

Cces. What, is the fellow mad? 

Pub. Sirrah, give place, lo 

Cas. What, urge you your petitions in the street? 
Come to the Capitol. 

Ccesar enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the 
Senators rise 
Pop. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive. 
Cas. What enterprise, Popilius? 
81 



82 JULIUS CMSAR [Act in 

Pop. Fare you well. 

[Advances to C^sar. 
Bru. What said Popilius Lena? 
Cas. He wished to-day our enterprise might 
thrive. 
I fear our purpose is discovered. 

Bru. Look, how he makes to Caesar: mark him. 
Cas. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention. — • 
Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known, 20 

Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back. 
For I will slay myself. 

Bru. Cassius, be constant: 

Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes; 
For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change. 
Cas. Trebonius knows his time; for, look you, 
Brutus, 
He draws Mark Antony out of the way. 

[Exeunt Antony and Trebonius. C^sar and 
the Senators take their seats. 
Dec. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go, 
And presently prefer his suit to Caesar. 

Bru. He is addressed : press near, and second him. 
Cin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 30 
Cms. Are we all ready? What is now amiss 
That Caesar and his senate must redress? 

Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant 
Caesar, 
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat 
An humble heart : — [Kneeling. 

Cces. I must prevent thee, Cimber. 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAE 83 

These coachings and these lowly courtesies 

Might fire the blood of ordinary men, 

And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 

Into the law of children. Be not fond, 

To think that Csesar bears such rebel blood 4o 

That will be thawed from the true quality 

With that which melteth fools; I mean sweet words, 

Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel-fawning. 

Thy brother by decree is banished ;. 

If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him, 

I spurn thee, like a cur, out of my way. 

Know, Csesar doth not wrong: nor without cause 

Will he be satisfied. 

Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own 
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear, 50 

For the repealing of my banished brother? 

Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Csesar; 
Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may 
Have an immediate freedom of repeal. 

C(BS. What, Brutus! 

Cas, Pardon, Csesar: Csesar, pardon: 

As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall 
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. 

Cces. I could be well moved, if I were as you; 
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 
But I am constant as the northern star, 60 

Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 
There is no fellow in the firmament. 
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks, 
They are all fire, and every one doth shine; 



84 JULIUS C^SAR [Act hi 

But there 's but one in all doth hold his place; 

So, in the world: 'tis furnished well with men, 

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive; 

Yet, in the number, I do know but one 

That unassailable holds on his rank, 

Unshaked of motion : and that I am he, 70 

Let me a little show it, even in this, — • 

That I was constant Cimber should be banished, 

And constant do remain to keep him so. 

Cin. O Caesar, — 

Cobs. Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus? 

Dec. Great Caesar, — 

CcBS. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel? 

Casca. Speak, hands, for me. 

[Casca stabs C^sar in the neck. Cesar catches 
hold of his arm. He is then stabbed by 
several other Conspirators, and at last by 
Marcus Brutus. 

Cces. Et tu, Brute? — Then fall, Caesar. 

[Dies. The Senators and people retire in con- 
fusion. 

Cin. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead ! — 
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 

Cas. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, — so 
''Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!" 

Bru. People and senators! be not affrighted; 
Fly not; stand still: — ambition's debt is paid. 

Casca. Go to the pulpit, Brutus. 

Dec. And Cassius too. 

Bru, Where's Publius? 










w E 



^Pi 



Scene 1] JULIUS CjESAR 85 

Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. 

Met. Stand fast together, lest some friend of 
Caesar's 
Should chance — ■ 

Bru. Talk not of standing. — Publius, good cheer; 
There is no harm intended to your person, 90 

Nor to no Roman else: so tell them, Publius. 

Cas. And leave us, Publius; lest that the people, 
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief. 

Bru. Do so; — and let no man abide this deed 
But we the doers. 

Reenter Trebonius 

Cas. Where is Antony? 

Tre. Fled to his house amazed: 
Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run 
As it were doomsday. 

Bru. Fates! we will know your pleasures: — 
That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time, 100 

And drawing days out, that men stand upon. 

Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life 
Cuts off so many years of fearing death. 

Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit: 
So we are Caesar's friends, that have abridged 
His time of fearing death. — Stoop, Romans, stoop, 
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood 
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords: 
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place; 
And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, up 

Let's all cry, ''Peace, freedom, and liberty!" 



86 JULIUS CjESAR [Act hi 

Cas. Stoop, then, and wash. — How many ages 
hence 
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er 
In states unborn and accents yet unknown! 

Bru. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, 
That now on Pompey's basis lies along, 
No worthier than the dust! 

Cas. So oft as that shall be, 

So often shall the knot of us be called 
The men that gave their country liberty. 

Dec. What, shall we forth? 

Cas. Ay, every man away: 120 

Brutus shall lead ; and we will grace his heels 
With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome. 

Bru. Soft, who comes here? 

Enter a Servant 

A friend of Antony's. 
Serv. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel; 
Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down; 
And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say: 
^* Brutus' is noble, wise, valiant, and honest; 
Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving: 
Say I love Brutus and I honor him; 
Say I feared Caesar, honored him, and loved him. 130 
If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony 
May safely come to him and be resolved 
How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death, 
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead 
So well as Brutus living; but will follow 



Scene 1] JULIUS C^SAR 87 

The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus, 
Thorough the hazards of this untrod state, 
With all true faith." So says my master Antony. 

Bru. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman; 
I never thought him worse. i40 

Tell him, so please him come unto this place, 
He shall be satisfied ; and, by my honor. 
Depart untouched. 

Serv. V\l fetch him presently. [Exit. 

Bru. I know that we shall have him well to 
friend. 

Cas. I wish we may: but yet have I a mind 
That fears him much; and my misgiving still 
Falls shrewdly to the purpose. 

Bru. But here comes Antony. 

Reenter Antony 

Welcome, Mark Antony. 
Ant. O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low? 
Are air thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, iso 
Shrunk to this little measure? — Fare thee well. — 
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend. 
Who else must be let blood, who else is rank: 
If I myself, there is no hour so fit 
As Caesar's death's hour; nor no instrument 
Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich 
With the most noble blood of all this world. 
I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, 
Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, 
Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years, lea 



88 JULIUS C^SAR [Act hi 

I shall not find myself so apt to die: 

No place will please me so, no mean of death, 

As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, 

The choice and master spirits of this age. 

Bru. O Antony ! beg not your death of us. 
Though now we must appear bloody and cruel, 
As, by our hands and this our present act, 
You see we do; yet see you but our hands 
And this the bleeding business they have done : 
Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful; 170 

And pity to the general wrong of Rome — 
As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity — ■ 
Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, 
To you our swords have leaden points, Mark 

Antony : 
Our arms in strength of malice and our hearts 
Of brothers' temper, do receive you in 
With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence. 

Cas. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
In the disposing of new dignities. 

Bru. Only be patient, till we have appeased 180 

The multitude, beside themselves with fear; 
And then we will deliver you the cause 
Why I, that did love Csesar when I struck him, 
Have thus proceeded. 

Ant. I doubt not of your wisdom. 

Let each man render me his bloody hand: 
First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you; — 
Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand; — 
Now, Decius Brutus, yours ; — now yours, Metellus ; — 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 89 

Yours, Cinna; — and, my valiant Casca, yours; — 

Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. i90 

Gentlemen all, — alas! what shall I say? 

My credit now stands on such slippery ground 

That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, 

Either a coward or a flatterer. — 

That I did love thee, Caesar, 0, 'tis true: 

If, then, thy spirit look upon us now. 

Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death 

To see thy Antony making his peace, 

Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, 

Most noble ! in the presence of thy coxg^ 200 

Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds. 

Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, 

It would become me better, than to close 

In terms of friendship with thine enemies. 

Pardon me, Julius! — Here wast thou bayed, brave 

hart; 
Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand, 
Signed in' thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy lethe. 
O world ! thou wast the forest to this hart ; 
And this, indeed, O world! the heart of thee. — 
How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 210 

Dost thou here lie ! 

Cas. Mark Antony, — 

Ant. Pardon me, Caius Cassius; 

The enemies of Caesar shall say this; 
Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty. 

Cas. I blame you not for praising Caesar so; 
But what compact mean you to have with us? 



90 JULIUS CMSAR [Act hi 

Will you be pricked in number of our friends; 
Or shall we on, and not depend on you? 

Ant. Therefore I took your hands; but was, 
indeed, 
Swayed from the point, by looking down on Caesar. 220 
Friends am I with you all, and love you all. 
Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons 
Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous. 

Bru. Or else were this a savage spectacle. 
Our reasons are so full of good regard 
That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, 
You should be satisfied. 

Ant. That's all I seek: 

And am, moreover, suitor that I may 
Produce his body to the market-place, 
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend, 230 

Speak in the order of his funeral. 

Bru. You shall, Mark Antony. 

Cas. Brutus, a word with you. — 

[Aside to Brutus.] You know not what you do; do 

not consent 
That Antony speak in his funeral: 
Know you how much the people may be moved 
By that which he will utter? 

Bru. By your pardon; — - 

I will myself into the pulpit first, 
And show the reason of our Caesar's death: 
What Antony shall speak, I will protest 
He speaks by leave and by permission; 240 

And that we are contented Cgesar shall 



Scene 1] JULIUS CJESAR 91 

Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies. 
It shall advantage more than do us wrong. 

Cas. I know not what may fall; I like it not. 

Bru. Mark Antony, here, take you Csesar's body. 
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us, 
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar; 
And say you do't by our permission; 
Else shall you not have any hand at all 
About his funeral : and you shall speak 250 

In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
After my speech is ended. 

Ant. Be it so; 

I do desire no more. 

Bru. Prepare the body then, and follow us. 

[Exeunt all but Antony. 

Ant. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
Tliat I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times. 
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! 
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, — 260 

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips 
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue, — 
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; 
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy : 
Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 
And dreadful objects so familiar. 
That mothers shall but smile when they behold 
Their infants quartered with the hands of war; 



92 JULIUS C^SAR [Act hi 

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds : 270 

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 

With Ate by his side, come hot from hell, 

Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war; 

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth 

With carrion men, groaning for burial. 

Enter a Servant 

You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not? 

Serv. I do, Mark Antony. 

Ant. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome. 

Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coming: 28O 
And bid me say to you by word of mouth, — 
O Caesar ! [Seeing the body. 

Ant. Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep. 
Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes. 
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
Began to water. Is thy master coming? 

Serp. He lies to-night within seven leagues of 
Rome. 

Ant. Post back with speed, and tell him what 
hath chanced: 
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome, 
No Rome of safety for Octavius yet; 290 

Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet, stay awhile; 
Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse 
Into the market-place : there shall I try. 
In my oration, how the people take 
The cruel issue of these bloody men; 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 93 

According to the which thou shalt discourse 

To young Octavius of the state of things. 

Lend me your hand. [Exeunt, with Cesar's body. 

Scene II 

The Forum 

Enter Brutus and Cassius and a throng of Citizens 

. Cit. We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied. 
Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, 
friends. — 
Cassius, go you into the other street, 
And part the numbers. — 

Those that will hear me speak, let them stay here; 
Those that will follow Cassius, go with him; 
And public reasons shall be rendered 
Of Caisar's death. 

1 Cit. I will hear Brutus speak. 

2 Cit. I will hear Cassius; and compare their 
reasons,' 

When severally we hear them rendered. \q 

[Exit Cassius with some of the Citizens. Brutus 
goes into the Rostrum. 

3 Cit. The noble Brutus is ascended: silence! 
Bru. Be patient till the last. 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! hear me for my 
cause; and be silent that you may hear: believe me 
for mine honor: and have respect to mine honor 
that you may believe : censure me in your wisdom ; 
and awake your senses that you may the better 



94 JULIUS CMSAR [Act hi 

judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear 
friend of Csesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love 
to Caesar was no less than his. If, then, that friend 20 
demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my 
answer: — Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I 
loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were 
living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, 
to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for 
him; as he was forturiate, I rejoice at it; as he 
was valiant, I honor him: but as he was ambi- 
tious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy 
for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death 
for his ambition. Who is here so base that would so 
be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I 
offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a 
Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. 
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If 
any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a 
reply. 

Citizens. None, Brutus, none. 

Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no 
more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The 
question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his 40 
glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor 
his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. 

Enter Antony and others, with Cesar's body. 

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: 
who, though he had no hand in his death, shall 
receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the com- 



Scene 2] JULIUS CJESAR 95 

monwealth: as which of you shall not? With this 
I depart: that, as I slew my best lover for the good 
of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it 
shall please my country to need my death. 

Citizens. Live, Brutus, live! live! so 

1 Cit, Bring him with triumph home unto his 
house. 

2 Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 

3 Cit. Let him be Csesar. 

4 Cit. Csesar's better parts 
Shall now be crowned in Brutus. 

1 Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts* 
and clamors. 

Bru. My countrymen, — 

2 Cit. Peace; silence! Brutus speaks- 
1 Cit. Peace, ho! 

Bru. Good countrymen, let me depart alone, 
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony: 
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech eo 

Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony, 
By our permission, is allowed to make. 
I do entreat you, not a man depart. 
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke. [ExiU 

1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony. 

3 Cit. Let him go up into the pubHc chair; 
We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up. 

A nt. For Brutus' sake I am beholding to you. 

4 Cit. What does he say of Brutus? 

3 Cit. He says, for Brutus' sake 

He finds himself beholding to us all. 7© 



96 JULIUS C^SAR [Act m 

4 Cit, 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus 
here. 

1 Cit. This Csesar was a tyrant. 

3 Cit. Nay, that's certain; 

We are blessed that Rome is rid of him. 

2 Cit. Peace; let us hear what Antony can say. 
Ant. You gentle Romans — 

Citizens. Peace, ho ! let us hear him. 

Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me 
your ears; 
T come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them; 
The good is oft interred with their bones; 
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 80 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault. 
And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, — 
For Brutus is an honorable man; 
So are they all, all honorable men; — 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 
He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 
But Brutus says he was ambitious; 
And Brutus is an honorable man. 90 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill : 
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? 
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: 
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAR 97 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? loo 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And, sure, he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause; 

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him? 

judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts. 

And men have lost their reason! — Bear with me; ^iJ^ 
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, * 

And I must pause till it come back to me. no 

^ 1 Cit. Methinks there is much reason in his 
Cfci^uM^j sayings. 

2 Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
Caesar has had great wrong. 

3 Cit. Has he, masters? 

1 fear there will a worse come in his place. 

4 Cit. Marked ye his words? He would not 
take the crown; 

Therefore, 'tis certain he was not ambitious. 

1 Cit. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 

2 Cit. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with 
weeping. 

3 Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than 
Antony. 

4 Cit. Now mark him, he begins again to speak. 120 
^nt. But yesterday the word of Caesar might 



98 JULIUS CMSAR [Act hi 

Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 

masters ! if I were disposed to stir 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know, are honorable men: 

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 130 

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar; 

I found it in his closet ; 'tis his will : 

Let but the commons hear this testament^ 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read — // "^ 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, Vi^ i^ ^ 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. 

And, dying, mention it within their wills. 

Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, 

Unto their issue. * 140 

4 Cit. We'll hear the will: read it, Mark Antony. 

Citizens. The will, the will! we will hear Caesar's 
will. 

Ant. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not 
read it; 
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. 
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; 
And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar 
It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 
Tis good you know not that you are his heirs; 
For if you should, 0, what would come of it ! 



Scene 2] . \ JULIUS CJESAR 99 

4 Cit. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony; 150 

You shall read us the will, Caesar's will. 

Ant. Will you be patient? will you stay awhile? 
I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it. 
I fear I wrong the honorable men 
Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar : I do fear it. 

4 Cit. They were traitors: honorable men! 

Citizens. The will! the testament! 

2 Cit. They were villains, murderers: the will! 
read the will! 

Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will? 
Then make a ring about the corpse of Csesar, leo 

And let me show you him that made the will. 
Shall I descend? And will you give me leave? 

Citizens. Come down. 

2 Cit. Descend. [He comes down. 

3 Cit. You shall have leave. 

4 Cit. A ring; stand round. 

1 Cit. Stand from the hearse, stand from the 
body. 

2 Cit. Room for Antony — most noble Antony! 
Ant. Nay, press not so upon me; stand far off. 
Citizens. Stand back! room! bear back! i7o 
Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 

You all do know this mantle : I remember 

The first time ever Caesar put it on; 

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, 

That day he overcame the Nervii: — 

Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: 

See what a rent the envious Casca made; -^ 



100 JULIUS CJESAR [Act m 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed; 

And as he plucked his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Csesar followed it, isii 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 

If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel: 

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Csesar loved him ! 

This was the most unkindest cut of all: 

For when the noble Csesar saw him stab. 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms. 

Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face. 

Even at the base of Pompey's statua, i90 

Which all the while ran blood, great Csesar fell. 

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! 

Then I and you and all of us fell down. 

Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 

O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel 

The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. 

Kind souls, what ! weep you when you but behold 

Our Csesar's vesture wounded? Look you here, 

Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors. 

1 Cit. O piteous spectacle ! 200 

2 Cit. noble Csesar! 

3 Cit. O woeful day! 

4 Cit. traitors, villains! 

1 Cit. O most bloody sight! 

2 Cit. We will be revenged. 

Citizens. Revenge! about! — seek! — burn! — fire! 
—kill! — slay! — let not a traitor live! 



Scene 2] JULIUS CMSAE 101 

Ant. Stay, countrymen. 

1 Git. Peace there: — hear the noble Antony. 

2 at. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die 
with him. 210 

Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir 
you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 
They that have done this deed are honorable; 
What private griefs they have, alas, I know, not. 
That made them do it ; they are wise and honorable^ 
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts; 
I am no orator, as Brutus is; 
But as you know me all, a plain, blunt man. 
That love my friend ; and that they know full well 220 
That gave me public leave to speak of him. 
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, 
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb 

mouths. 
And bid them speak for me: but, were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar that should move 230 

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 

Citizens. We'll mutiny! 

1 Cit. We'll burn the house of Brutus! 

3 Cit. Away, then; come, seek the conspirators I 



102 JULIUS CMSAR [Act hi 

Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me 

speak. 
Citizens. Peace, ho! Hear Antony, most noble 

Antony. 
Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not 
what. 
Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves? 
Alas, you know not — I must tell you, then: — 
You have forgot the will I told you of. 24d 

Citizens. Most true; the will! — let's stay, and 

hear the will. 
Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. 
To every Roman citizen he gives. 
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 

2 Cit. Most noble Caesar! — we'll revenge his 
death. 

3 Cit. royal Caesar! 

Ant. Hear me with patience. 

Citizens. Peace, ho! 

Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks. 
His private arbors, and new-planted orchards, 250 

On this side Tiber; he hath left them you. 
And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures, 
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 
Here wa^ a Caesar! When comes such another? 

1 Cit. Never, never! — Come, away, away! 
We'll burn his body in the holy place, 

And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. 
Take up the body. 

2 Cit. Go, fetch fire. 



Scene 3] JULIUS CJESAR . 103 

3 at. Pluck down benches. 26o 

4 at. Pluck down forms, windows, any thing. 

[Exeunt Citizens, with the body. 
Ant. Now let it work! Mischief, thou art afoot, 
Take thou what course thou wilt! — 
Enter a Servant 

How now, fellow? 

Serv. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome. 

Ant. Where is he? 

Serv. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house. 

Ant. And thither will I straight to visit him. 
He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, 
And in this mood will give us any thing. 

Serv. I heard him say, Brutus and Cassius 270 

Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome. 

Ant. Belike they had some notice of the people, 
How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius. 

[Exeunt. 




Scene III 
A street 
Enter Cinna, the Poet 
an. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with 
Caesar, 
And things unlucky charge my fantasy: 
I have no will to wander forth of doors, 
Yet something leads me forth. 
Enter Citizen 
1 at. What is your name? 



104 JULIUS CMSAR [Act hi 

2 at. Whither are you going? 

3 at. Where do you dwell? 

*^ 4 at. Are you a married man or a bachelor? 

2 at. Answer every man directly. 

1 at. Ay, and briefly. lo 
V 4 at. Ay, and wisely. 

3 at. Ay, and truly, you were best. 

an. What is my name? Whither am I going? 
Where do I dwell? Am I a married man or a bache- 
lor? Then, to answer every man directly and 
briefly, wisely and truly: wisely, I say, I am a 
bachelor. 

2 a^t. That's as much as to say, they are fools 
that marry: you'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. 
Proceed; directly. 20 

an. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral. 

1 at. As a friend or an enemy? 
an. As a friend. 

2 at. That matter is answered directly. 

4 at. For your dwelling, — briefly. 
an. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol. 

3 at. Your name, sir, truly. 
an. Truly, my name is Cinna. 

1 at. Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator. 

an. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet. 30 

4 at. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for 
his bad verses. 

an. I am not Cinna the conspirator. 

2 at. It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck 
but his name out of his heart, and turn him going. 



bcENE 3] JULIUS CMSAR 105 

3 at. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! 
firebrands! To Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all. 
Some to Decius' house, and some to Casca's; some 
to Ligarius'; away, go I • [Exeunt. 




<i{/j>-- J 



ACT IV 

Scene I 
A room in Antony's house 
Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, seated at a table 
Ant. These many, then, shall die; their names are 

pricked. 
Oct. Your brother too must die: consent you, 

Lepidus? 
Le'p. I do consent — 

Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 

Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live. 
Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. 
Ant. He shall not live: look, with a spot I damn 
him. 
But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house; 
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine 
How to cut off some charge in legacies. 

Lep. What, shall I find you here? lo 

Oct. Or here or at the Capitol. [Exit Lepidus. 
Ant. This is a slight, unmeritable man, 
Meet to be sent on errands : is it fit. 
The three-fold world divided, he should stand 
One of the three to share it? 

Oct. So you thought him; 

And took his voice who should be pricked to die, 
In our black sentence and proscription. 

106 



Scene 1] JULIUS CJSSAR 107 

Ant. Octavius, I have seen more days than you: 
And though we lay these honors on this man, 
To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, 20 

He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, 
To groan and sweat under the business, 
Either led or driven, as we point the way; 
And having brought our treasure where we will, 
Then take we down his load, and turn him off, 
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears 
And graze in commons. 

Oct. You may do your will; 

But he ^s a tried and valiant soldier. 

Ant. So is my horse, Octavius; and for that 
I do appoint him store of provender. 30 

It is a creature that I teach to fight. 
To wind, to stop, to run directly on. 
His corporal motion governed by my spirit. 
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so ; 
He must be taught and trained and bid go forth: 
A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds 
On objects, arts and imitations. 
Which, out of use and staled by other men, 
Begin his fashion : do not talk of him 
But as a property. And now, Octavius, 4t 

Listen great things. — Brutus and Cassius 
Are levying powers: we must straight make head: 
Therefore let our alliance be combined. 
Our best friends made, our means stretched out; 
And let us presently go sit in council. 
How covert matters may be best disclosed. 



108 JULIUS CMSAR [Act i\ 

And open perils surest answered. 

Oct. Let us do so: for we are at the stake, 
And bayed about with many enemies; 
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, , so 
Millions of mischiefs. [Exeunt. 

Scene II 
Before Brutus's tent, in the camp near Sardis 
Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucilius, Lucius, and Sol- 
diers: TiTiNius and Pindarus meeting them 

Bru. Stand, ho! 

Luc. Give the word, ho! and si-and. 

Bru. What now, Lucilius ! is Cassius near? 

Luc. He is at hand; and Pindarus is come 
To do you salutation from his master. 

[Pindarus gives a letter to Brutus. 

Bru. He greets me well. — Your master, Pindarus, 
In his own change, or by ill officers. 
Hath given me some worthy cause to wish 
Things done undone: but if he be at hand, 
I shall be satisfied. 

Pin. I do not doubt , lo 

But that my noble master will appear 
Such as he is, full of regard and honor. 

Bru. He is not doubted. — A word, Lucilius; 
How he received you, let me be resolved. 

Luc With courtesy, and with respect enough; 
But not with such familiar instances. 
Nor with such free and friendly conference, 



Scene 2] JULIUS C^SAR 109 

As he hath used of old. 

Bru. Thou hast described 

A hot friend cooHng: ever note, LuciHus, 
When love begins to sicken and decay, 20 

It useth an enforced ceremony. 
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith: 
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle: 
But when they should endure the bloody spur, 
They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades, 
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on? 

Luc. They mean this night in Sardis to be quar- 
tered ; 
The greater part, the horse in general. 
Are come with Cassius. [March within. 

Bru. Hark, he is arrived: — 30 

March gently on to meet him. 

Enter Cassius and Soldiers 

Cas. Stand, ho! 

Bru. Stand, ho ! Speak the word along. 

1 Sol. Stand! 
v/2 Sol. Stand! 

3 Sol. Stand! 

Cas. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. 

Bru. Judge me, you gods ! Wrong I mine enemies? 
And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother? 

Cas. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs; 40 
And when you do them — 

Bru. Cassius, be content; 



no JULIUS CJESAR [Act iv 

Speak your griefs softly, — I do know you well: — 
Before the eyes of both our armies here, 
Which should perceive nothing but love from us, 
Let us not wrangle: bid them move away; 
Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, 
And I will give you audience. 

Cas. Pindarus, 

Bid our commanders lead their charges off 
A little from this ground. 

Bru. Lucius, do you the like ; and let no man 5c 

Come to our tent, till we have done our conference. 
Lucilius and Titinius, guard our door. [Exeunt. 

Scene III 
Within the tent of Brutus 
Enter Brutus and Cassius 
Cas. That you have wronged me doth appear in . 
this: 
You have condemned and noted Lucius Bella 
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
Wherein my letters, praying on his side. 
Because I knew the man, were slighted off. 

Bru. You wronged yourself to write in such a case. 
Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet 
That every nice offence should bear his comment. 

Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching palm, lo 

To sell and mart your offices for gold 
To undeservers. 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 111 

Cos. I an itching palm? 

You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. 

Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption, 
^f2A -^^d chastisement doth therefore hide his head. 

Cas. Chastisement! 

Bru. Remember March, the ides of March remem- 
ber 1 
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? 
What villain touched his body, that did stab, 20 

And not for justice? What, shall one of us. 
That struck the foremost man of all this world 
But for supporting robbers, — shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes. 
And sell the mighty space of our large honors 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus? 
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon. 
Than such a Roman. 

Cas. Brutus, bait not me; 

I'll not endure it : you forget yourself. 
To hedge me in; I am a soldier, ay, 39 

Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions. 

Bru. Go to; you are not, Cassius. 

Cas. I am. 

Bru. I say you are not. 

Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; 
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no further. 

Bru. Away, slight man! 

Cas. Is 't possible? 



(12 JULIUS CMSAR [Act iv 

Bru, Hear me, for I will speak. 

Must I give way and room to your rash choler? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? 4o 

Cas. O ye gods! ye gods! Must I endure all this? 

Bru All this? ay, more: fret till your proud heart 
break; 
Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And m,ake your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? 
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humor? By the gods, 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen. 
Though it do split you ! for, from this day forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
When you are waspish. 

Cas. Is it come to this? so 

Bru. You say you are a better soldier: 
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true. 
And it shall please me well: for mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men. 

Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, 
Brutus; 
I said an elder soldier, not a better: 
Did I say, better? 

Bru. If you did, I care not. 

Cas. When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have 
moved me. 

Bru. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have tempted 
him. 

Cas. I durst not? €C 

Bru, No. 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 113 

Cas. What? durst not tempt him? 

Bru. For your life you durst not. 

Cos. Do not presume too much upon my love; 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats: 
For I am armed so strong in honesty 
That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
Which I respect not. I did send to you 
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; — 70 
For I can raise no money by vile means: 
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, 
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
By any indirection! I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions, " "*^^ 
Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius? 
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters from his friends, so 

Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts. 
Dash him to pieces! 

Cas, I denied you not. 

Bru. You did. 

Cas. I did not ; he was but a fool 

That brought my answer back. — Brutus hath rived 

my heart: 
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

Bru. I do not, till you practice them on me. 



114 JULIUS CMSAR [Act iv 

Cas. You love me not. 

Bru. I do not like your faults. 

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 

Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do ap- 
pear 90 
As huge as high Olympus. 

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, 
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, 
For Cassius is a-weary of the world: 
Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; 
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed, 
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote. 
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes! — There is my dagger 
And here my naked breast; within, a heart lOO 

Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold: 
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth; 
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart: 
Strike as thou didst at Csesar; for I know. 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him 

better 
Than ever thou lovMst Cassius. 

Bru. Sheathe your dagger: 

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope; 
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor. 
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb. 
That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; no 

Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, J^^K/i/) 
And straight is cold again. 

Cas. Hath Cassius lived 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 115 

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him? 

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too. 

Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your 
hand. 

Bru. And my heart too. 

Cas. O Brutus! — 

Bru. What's the matter? 

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, 
When that rash humor which my mother gave me 
Makes me forgetful? 

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth, 120 

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 

[Noise within. 

Poet. [Within.] Let me go in to see the generals; 
There is some grudge between them; 'tis not meet 
They be alone. 

Lucil. [Withi7i.] You shall not come to them. 

Poet. [Within.] Nothing but death shall stay me. 

Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius, Titinius, and 
Lucius 

Cas. How now! What's the matter? 

Poet. For shame, you generals: what do you 
mean? 
Love and be friends, as two such men should be; i3o 
For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye. 

Cas. Ha, ha! how vilely doth this cynic rhyme! 

Bru. Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence J 



116 JULIUS CMSAR [Act iv 

Cas. Bear with him, Brutus; 'tis his fashion. 
, Bru. I'll know his humor, when he knows his 

time: 
What should the wars do with these jigging fools? 
Companion, hence! 

Cas. Away, away, be gone ! [Exit Poet. 

Bru. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders 
Prepare to lodge their companies to-night. 

Cas. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with 
you, 140 

Immediately to us. [Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius. 

Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine. [Exit Luciusr 

Cas. I did not think you could have been so angry. 

Bru. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 

Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use. 
If you give place to accidental evils. 

Bru. No man bears sorrow better: — Portia is - 
dead. 

Cas. Ha! Portia! 

Bru. She is dead. 

Cas. How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you 

so? 150 

O insupportable and touching loss! — 

Upon what sickness? 

' Bru. Impatient of my absence, 

And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony 

Have made themselves so strong; — for with her 

death 
That tidings came;— with this she fell distract, 
And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire. 



Scene 3] JULIUS CMSAR 117 

Cas. And died so? 

Bru. Even so. 

Cas. O ye immortal Gods! 

Reenter Lucius, with wine and tapers 
Bru. Speak no more of her. — Give me a bowl of 
wine : — 
In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks, 160 

Cas. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge: — 
Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup; 
I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drinks, 

Reenter Titinius and Messala 

Bru. Come in, Titinius'. — Welcome, good Mes- 
sala. — 
Now sit we close about this taper here, 
And call in question our necessities. 

Cas. Portia, art thou gone? 

Bru. No more, I pray you. — 

Messala, I have here received letters. 
That young Octavius and Mark Antony 
Come down upon us with a mighty power, 17C 

Bending their expedition toward Philippi. 

Mes. Myself have letters of the self-same tenor. 

Bru. With what addition? 

Mes. That by proscription, and bills of outlawry, 
Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus 
Have put to death an hundred senators. 

Bru. Therein our letters do not well agree; 
Mine speak of seventy senators that died 
By their proscriptions, Cicero being one. 



118 JULIUS C^SAR [Act iv 

Cos. Cicero one? 

Mes. Cicero is dead, 180 

And by that order of proscription. — 
Had you your letters from your wife, my lord? 

Bru. No, Messala. 

Mes. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her? 

Bru. Nothing, Messala. 

Mes. That, methinks, is strange. 

Bru. Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in 
yours? 

Mes. No, my lord. 

Bru. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true. 

Mes. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell: 
For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. iQO 

Bru. Why, farewell, Portia. — We must die, Mes- 
sala: 
With meditating that she must die once, 
X have the patience to endure it now. 

Mes. Even so great men great losses should en- 
dure. 

Cas. I have as much of this in art as you. 
But yet my nature could not bear it so. 

Bru. Well, to our work alive. What do you think 
Of marching to Philippi presently? 

Cas. I do not think it good. 

Bru, Your reason? 

Cas. This it is: 

'Tis better that the enemy seek us: 200 

So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, 
Doing himself offence; whilst we, lying still, 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 119 

Are full of rest, defence, and nimbleness. 

Bru. Good reasons must, of force, give place to 
better. 
The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground 
Do stand but in a forced affection, 
For they have grudged us contribution: 
The enemy, marching along by them. 
By them shall make a fuller number up, 
Come on refreshed, new-added, and encouraged; 210 
From which advantage shall we cut him off, 
If at Philippi we do face him there. 
These people at our back. 

Cas. Hear me, good brother. 

Bru. Under your pardon. — You must note be- 
side. 
That we have tried the utmost of our friends. 
Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe: 
The enemy increaseth every day, 
We, at the height, are ready to decline. 
There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 220 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat, 
And we must take the current when it serves. 
Or lose our ventures. 

Cas. Then, with your will, go on: 

We will along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi. ouT 

Bru. The deep of night is crept upon our talk, ' 
And nature must obey necessity; 



120 JULIUS CMSAR [Act iv 

Which we will niggard with a little rest. 
There is no more to say? 

Cas. No more. Good night; 23o 

Early to-morrow will we rise and hence. 

Bru. Lucius, my gown. Farewell, good Messala;— 

[Exit Lucius. 
Good nighib, Titinius. — Noble, noble Cassius, 
Good night, and good repose. 

Cas. O my dear brother! 

This was an ill beginning of the night: 
Never come such division 'tween our souls! 
Let it not, Brutus. 

Bru. Everything is well. 

Cas. Good night, my lord, 

Bru. Good night, good brother. 

Tit., Mes. Good night, lord Brutus. 

Bru. Farewell, every one. 

[Exeunt Cassius, Titinius, and Messala. 

Reenter Lucius, with the gown 

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument? 240 

Luc. Here in the tent. 

Bru. What? thou speak'st drowsily: 

Poor knave, I blame thee not; thou art o'erwatched. 
Call Claudius and some other of my men: 
I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent. 

Luc. Varro, and Claudius! 

Enter Varro and Claudius 

Var. Calls my lord? 

Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep; 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 121 

It may be I shall raise you by and by 
On business to my brother Cassius. 

Var. So please you, we will stand and watch your 
pleasure. 250 

Bru. I will not have it so: lie down, good sirs; 
It may be I shall otherwise bethink me, — 
Look, Lucius, here's the book I sought for so : 
I put it in the pocket of my gown. 

[Var. and Claud, lie down, 

Luc. I was sure your lordship did not give it me. 

Bru. Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful. 
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile. 
And touch thy instrument a strain or two? 

Luc. Ay, my lord, an't please you. 

Bru. It does, my boy: 

I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing. 26O 

Luc. It is my duty, sir. 

Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might: 
I know young bloods look for a time of rest. 

Luc. 1 have slept, my lord, already. 

Bru. It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again; 
I will not hold thee long: if I do live, 
I will be good to thee. [Music and a Song, 

This is a sleepy tune : — O murderous slumber, 
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy. 
That plays thee music? — Gentle knave, good night; 270 
I will not do thee so much Wrong to wake thee. 
If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument; 
I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good 
night, — 



122 JULIUS CMSAR [Act iv 

Let me see, let me see : — is not the leaf turned 

down 
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think. 

[He sits down. 

Enter the Ghost of C^sar 

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? 

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 

That shapes this monstrous apparition. 

It comes upon me ! — Art thou any thing? 

Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, 28o 

That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare? 

Speak to me what thou art. 

Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 

Bru. Why comest thou? 

Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. 

Bru. Well: then I shall see thee again? 

Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. «.<' 

Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then. — 

[Ghost vanishes. 
Now I have taken heart thou vanishest: 
111 spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. — 
Boy! Lucius! — Varro! Claudius! Sirs, awake! — 
Claudius! 290 

Luc. The strings, my lord, are false. ^^ 

Bru. He thinks he still is at his instrument.— 
Lucius, awake! 

Luc. My lord? 

Bru. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so 
criedst out? £>. > 



Scene 3] JULIUS CMSAR 123 

Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry. 

Bru. Yes, that thou didst: didst thou see any 
thing? 

Lnjic. Nothing, my lord. 

Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. — Sirrah, Claudius! 

[To Varro. 
Fellow thou! awake! soo 

Var. My lord? 

Clau. My lord? 

Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep? 

Var., Clau. Did we, my lord? 

Bru. Ay; saw you any thing? 

Var. No, my lord, I saw nothing. 

Clau. Nor I, my lord. 

Bru. Go and commend me to my brother Cassius; 
Bid him set on his powers betimes before. 
And we will follow. 

Var., Clau. It shall be done, my lord. 

[Exeunt, 

/ 



ACT V 

Scene I 
The 'plains of Philippi 
Enter Octavius, Antony, and their Army 

Oct. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered: 
You said the enemy would not come down, 
But keep the hill and upper regions. 
It proves not so: their battles are at hand; 
They mean to warn us at Philippi here. 
Answering before we do demand of them. 

Ant. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know 
Wherefore they do it : they could be content 
To visit other places ; and come down 
With fearful bravery, thinking by this face 10 

To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage; 
But 'tis not so. 

Enter a Messenger 

Mess. Prepare you, generals: 

The enemy comes on in gallant show; 
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out, 
And something to be done immediately. 

Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on, 
,Upon the left hand of the even field. 

Oct. Upon the right hand I ; keep thou the left. 
124 c?.- 



Scene 1] JULIUS CMSAR 125 

Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent? 

Oct. I do not cross you; but I will do so. [March. 20 

Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius, and their Army; 
LuciLiuS; TiTiNius, Mess ALA, and others 

Bru. They stand, and would have parley. 

Cas. Stand fast, Titinius : we must out and talk. 

Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle? 

Ant. No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge. 
Make forth; the generals would have some words. 

Oct. Stir not until the signal. 

Bru. Words before blows : is it so, countrymen? 

Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do. 

Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, 
Octavius. 

Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good 
words: ao 

Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart. 
Crying, 'Tong live! Hail, Caesar!" 

Cas. Antony, 

The posture of your blows are yet unknown; 
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees 
And leave them honeyless. 

Ant. Not stingless too. 

Bru. O, yes, and soundless too; 
For you have stolen their buzzing, Antony, 
And, very wisely, threat before you sting. 

Ant. Villains, you did not so, when your vile 
daggers 
Hacked one another in the sides of Csesar: 40 



126 JULIUS C^SAR [Act v 

You showed your teeth like apes, and fawned like 

hounds, 
And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet; 
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind 
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers ! 

Cos. Flatterers! — Now, Brutus, thank yourself: 
This tongue had not offended so to-day. 
If Cassius might have ruled. 

Oct. Come, come, the cause: if arguing make us 
sweat, 
The proof of it will turn to redder drops. 
Look, — I draw a sword against conspirators: so 

When think you that the sword goes up again? — 
Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds 
Be well avenged; or till another Caesar 
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors. 

Bru. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands, 
Unless thou bring'st them with thee. ' 

Oct. So 1 hope ; 

I was not born to die on Brutus' sword. 

Bru. 0, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain, 
Young man, thou couldst not die more honorable. 

Cas. A peevish school-boy, worthless of such 
honor, 6© 

Joined with a masker and a reveller ! 

Ant. Old Cassius still! 

Oct. Come, Antony; away! — ' 

Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth: 
If you dare fight to-day, come to the field; 
If not, when you have stomachs. 



Scene 1] JULIUS C^SAR 127 

[Exeunt Octavius, Antony, and their Army. 

Cas. Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and 
swim bark ! 
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard. 

Bru. Ho, Lucilius! hark, a word with you. 
. Lucil. My lord. 

[Brutus and Lucilius converse apart. 

Cas. Messala, — 

Mes. What says my general? 

Cas. Messala, 

This is my birth-day; as this very day 70 

Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala; 
Be thou my witness that against my will, 
As Pompey was, am I compelled to set 
Upon one battle all our liberties. 
You know that I held Epicurus strong 
And his opinion : now I change my mind, 
And partly credit things that do presage. 
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 
Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perched. 
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; so 

Who to Philippi here consorted us; 
This morning are they fled away and gone; 
And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites 
Fly o 'er our heads, and downward look on us, 
As we were sickly prey; their shadows seem 
A canopy most fatal, under which 
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. 

Mes. Believe not so. 

Cas. I but b^eve it partly; 



128 JULIUS C^SAR [Act v 

For I am fresh of spirit and resolved 

To meet all perils very constantly. 90 

Bru. Even so, Lucilius. [Advancing. 

Cas. Now, most noble Brutus, 

The gods to-day stand friendly; that we may, 
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age ! 
But, since the affairs of men rest still incertain, 
Let's reason with the worst that may befall. 
If we do lose this battle, then is this 
The very last time we shall speak together: 
What are you then determined to do? 

Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
By which I did blame Cato for the death lOO 

Which he did give himself : — I know not how, 
But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
The time of life : — arming myself with patience 
To stay the providence of some high powers 
That govern us below. 

Cas. Then, if we lose this battle, 

You are contented to be led in triumph rr^, , 
Through the streets of Rome? 

Bru. No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble 
Roman, 
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome ; no 

He bears too great a mind. But this same day 
Must end that work the ides of March begun; 
And whether we shall meet again I know not. 
Therefore our everlasting farewell take : — 
For ever and for ever farewell, Cassius I 



Scene 3] JULIUS C^SAR 129 

If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; 

If not, why, then this parting was well made. 

Cas. For ever and for ever farewell, Brutus 
If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed ; 
If not, 'tis true this parting was well made. 120 

Bru. Why, then lead on. — O, that a man might 
know 
The end of this day's business ere it come ! 
But it sufficeth that the day will end, 
And then the end is known. — Come, ho! away! 

[Exeunt, 

Scene II 

The field of battle 

Alarum. Enter Brutus and Messala 

Bru. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills 
Unto the legions on the other side : [Loud alarum. 
Let them set on at once; for I perceive 
But cold demeanor in Octavius' wing, 
And sudden push gives them the overthrow. 
Ride, ride, Messala: let them all come down. 

[Exeunt, 

Scene III 

Another part of the field 

Alarum. Enter Cassius and Titinius 

Cas. O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly! 
Myself have to mine own turned enemy: 
This ensign here of mine was turning back; 



130 JULIUS CMSAR [Act v 

I slew the coward, and did take it from him. 

Tit. Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early: 
Who, having some advantage on Octavius, 
Took it too eagerly; his soldiers fell to spoil, 
Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed. 

Enter Pindarus 

Pin. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off. 
Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord! lo 

Fly therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off. 

Cas. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Tijbinius; 
Are those my tents where I perceive the fire? 

Tit. They are, my lord. 

Cas. Titinius, if thou lov'st me, 

Mount thou my horse and hide thy spurs in him, 
Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops 
And here again; that I may rest assured 
Whether yond' troops are friend or enemy. 

Tit. I will be here again, even with a thought. 

[Exit. 

Cas. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill; 20 

My sight was ever thick; regard Titinius, 
And tell me what thou not'st about the field.— 

[Pindarus goes up. 
This day I breathed first: time is come round, 
And where I did begin, there shall I end; 
My life is run his compass. — Sirrah, what news? 

Pin. [Above.] my lord! 

Cas. What news? 

Pin. Titinius is enclosed round about 



Scene 3] JULIUS CMSAR 131 

With horsemen that make to him on the spur; 
Yet he spurs on. — Now they are almost on him; 3o 
Now, Titinius ! — Now some ^light : O, he 'lights too : — 
He's ta'en; — [Shout] and hark! they shout for joy. 

Cas. Come down; behold no more. — 
O, coward that I am, to live so long. 
To see my best friend ta'en before my face! 

PiNDARUS descends 

Come hither, sirrah: 

In Parthia did I take thee prisoner; 

And then I swore thee, saving of thy life, 

That wliatsoever I did bid thee do 

Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine 

oath! 40 

Now be a freeman; and, with this good sword. 
That ran through Csesar's bowels, search this bosom. 
Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts; 
And when my face is covered, as 'tis now. 
Guide thou the sword. — Csesar, thou art revenged, 
Even with the sword that killed thee. [Dies. 

Pin. So, I am free ; yet would not so have been, 
Durst I have done my will. O Cassius! 
Far from this country Pindarus shall run. 
Where never Roman shall take note of him. [Exit, so 

Reenter Titinius, with Messala 

Mes. It is but change, Titinius; for Octavius 
Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power. 
As Cassius' legions are by Antony. 

Tit. These tidings will well comfort Cassius. 



132 JULIUS C^SAR [Act V 

Mes. Where did you leave him? 

Tit. All disconsolate, 

With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill. 

Mes. Is not that he that lies upon the ground? 

Tit. He lies not like the living. O my heart! 

Mes. Is not that he? ■ 

Tit. No, this was he, Messala, 

But Cassius is no more. — O setting sun! 60 

As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night 
So in his red blood Cassius' day is set; 
The sun of Rome is set! Our day is gone; 
Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done! 
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed. 

Mes. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 
O hateful Error, Melancholy's child! 
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
The things that are not? O Error, soon conceived, 
Thou never com'st . unto a happy birth, 70 

But kill'st the mother that engendered thee. 

Tit. What, Pindarus ! Where art thou, Pindarus? 

Mes. Seek him, Titinius: whilst I go to meet 
The noble Brutus, thrusting this report 
Into his ears: I may say, thrusting it; 
For piercing steel and darts envenomed 
Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus 
As tidings of this sight 

Tit. Hie you, Messala, 

And I will seek for Pindarus the while. 

[Exit Messala. 
Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius? «o 



Scene 3] JULIUS CMSAR 133 

Did I not meet thy friends? and did not they 

Put on my brows this wreath of victory, 

And bid me give't thee? Didst thou not hear their 

shouts? 
Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing. 
But hold thee, take this garland on thy brow; 
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee^ and I 
Will do his bidding. — Brutus^ come apace. 
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius. — 
By your leave, gods: — this is a Roman's part: 
Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart. [Dies. 90 / 

Alarum. Reenter Messala, with Brutus, young 

Cato, Strato, Volumnius, and Lucilius T^ V' 

Bru. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie? 

Mes. Lo, yonder; and Titinius mourning it. 

Bru. Titinius' face is upward. 

Cato. He is slain. 

Bru. Julius Csesar, thou art mighty yet! 
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
In our own proper entrails. [Low alarums. 

Cato. Brave Titinius! 

Look, whether he have not crowned dead Cassius ! 

Bru. Are yet two Romans living such as these? — ■ 
The last of all the Romans, fare thee well! 
It is impossible that ever Rome loo 

Should breed thy fellow. — Friends, I owe moe tears 
To this dead man than you shall see me pay. — 
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. — 
Gome, therefore, and to Thassos send his body; 



134 JULIUS CMSAR [Act v 

His funerals shall not be in our camp, 

Lest it discomfort us. — Lucilius, come; 

And come, young Cato; let us to the field. 

Labeo and Flavius, set our battles on: 

'Tis three o'clock; and, Romans, yet ere night 

We shall try fortune in a second fight. [Exeunt, no 

Scene IV 

Another part of the field 

Alarum. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both armies; then 
Brutus, Cato, Lucilius, and others 

Bru. Yet, countrymen, O yet hold up your heads I 

Cato. What bastard doth not? Who will go with me? 
I will proclaim my name about the field: — 
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho! 
A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend; 
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! [Charges the enemy. 

Bru. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; 
Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus. 

[Exit, charging the enemy. Cato is overpowered, 
and falls. 

Lucil. O young and noble Cato, art thou down? 
Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius* lo 

And mayst be honored, being Cato's son. 

1 Sold. Yield, or thou diest. 

Lucil. Only I yield to die; 

There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight; 

[Offering money. 
Kill Brutus, and be honored in his death. 



Scene 5] JULIUS C^SAR 135 

1 Sold. We must not. — A noble prisoner! 

2 Sold. Room, ho ! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. 
1 Sold. I'll tell the news. — Here comes the gen- 
eral. — : _ 

Enter Antony 
Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord. 

Ant. Where is he? 

Lucil. Safe, Antony; Brutus is safe enough; 20 

I dare assure thee that no enemy 
Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus: 
The gods defend him from so great a shame ! 
When you do find him, or alive or dead. 
He will be found like Brutus, like himself. 

Ant. This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you, 
A prize no less in worth: keep this man safe, 
Give him all kindness; I had rather have 
Such men my friends than enemies. Go on, 
And see whether Brutus be alive or dead so 

And bring us word unto Octavius' tent 
How everything is chanced. [Exeunt. 

Scene V 

Another part of the field 

Enter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato, and 

VOLUMNIUS 

Bru, Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this 

rock. 
Cli. Statilius showed the torchlight: but, my lord, 
He came not back; he is or ta'en or slain. 



136 JULIUS CMSAR [Act v 

Bru. Sit thee down, Clitus: slaying is the word; 
It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus. — 

{Whispering. 

Cli. What! I, my lord? No, not for all the world. 

Bru. Peace then, no words. 

Cli. I'd rather kill myself. 

Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius. — [Whispers him. 

Dar. Shall I do such a deed? 

Cli. O Dardanius! 

Dar. Clitus! lo 

Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee? 

Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates. 

Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief. 
That it runs over even at his eyes. • 

Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius: list a word. 

Vol. What says my lord? 

Bru. Why, this, Volumnius. 

The ghost of Csesar hath appeared to me 
Two several times by night: at Sardis once, 
And this last night here in Philippi fields. 
I know my hour is come. 

Vol. Not so, my lord. 20 

Bru. Nay, I'm sure it is, Volumnius. 
Thou see'st the world, Volumnius, how it goes; 
Our enemies have beat us to the pit. [Low alarums. 
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves 
Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius, 
Thou know'st that we two went to school together; 
Even for that our love of old, I prithee. 
Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it. 



Scene 5] JULIUS CMSAR 137 

Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. 

[Alarum still. 

Cli. Fly, fly, my lord; there is no tarrying here. so 

Bru. Farewell to you; — and you; — and you, 
Volumnius. 
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep; 
Farewell to thee too, Strato. — Countrymen, 
My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life, 
I found no man but he was true to me. 
I shall have glory by this losing day, 
More than Octavius and Mark Antony 
By this vile conquest shall attain unto. 
So, fare you well at once ; for Brutus' tongue 
Hath almost ended his life's history: 40 

Night hangs upon my eyes : my bones would rest. 
That have but labored to attain this hour. 

[Alarum. Cry within — "Fly, fly, fly!" 

Cli. Fly, my lord, fly! 

Bru. Hence; I will follow. 

[Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius, and Volumnius. 
I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord: 
Thou art a fellow of a good respect; 
Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it: 
Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face. 
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato? 

Stra. Give me your hand first: fare you well, my 
lord. 

Bru. Farewell, good Strato. — Caesar, now be still: so 
I kill'd not thee with half so good a will. 

[He runs on his sword, and dies. 



138 JULIUS CJESAR [Act v ■ 

Alarum; retreat. Enter Octavius, Antony, Mes* 
' SALA, LuciLius, and the Army 
Oct. What man is that? 
Mes. My master's man. — Strato, where is thy 

master? 
Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala; 
The conquerors can but make a fire of him; 
For Brutus only overcame himself, 
And no man else hath honor by his death. 

Lucil. So Brutus should be found. — I thank thee, 
Brutus, 
That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true. 

Oct. All that served Brutus, I will entertain 
them. — 60 

Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me? 
Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you. 
Oct. Do so, good Messala. 

Mes. How died my master, Strato? 

Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. 
Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, 
That did the latest service to my master. 

Ant. This was uhe noblest Roman of them all: 
All the conspirators, save only he, 
J Did that they did in envy of great Csesar; 
He only, in a general honest thought 7G 

And common good to all, made one of them. 
His life was gentle; and the elements 
So mixed in him that nature might stand up, 
i And say to all the world, " This was a man ! " 



Scene 5] JULIUS CMSAR 139 

Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, 
With all respect and rites of burial. 
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, 
Most like a soldier, ordered honorably. — 
So, call the field to rest: and let 's away. 
To part the glories of this happy day. [Exeunt, so 



NOTES 



The following contractions are used in the notes: O. E. = 01d 
English; O. Fr. = 01d French; Gr. = Greek; Lat.= Latin; Of. = con- 
fer (compare); Abbott = Dr. Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar; 
CI. P. S.= Clarendon Press Series; and Co. S. =Collins's Series. 



ACT I 

Scene I 

Page 37. 3. Mechanical. Mechanics or artisans. — Ought not 
walk. This is the only instance in Shakespeare where ought is not 
followed by to. After the verbs hid, see, m,ake, hear, tell, and others, 
we have at present no to; because with these verbs the old infinitives 
in an remained longer in use. And Dr. Abbott points out that, in 
the Elizabethan period, there was much inconsistency in the use or 
omission of the to. 

4. A laboring- day. A working day. The word laboring is not 
here an adjective or participle, but a gerund or verbal noun, like 
frying-pan, walking-stick, working-dress, riding-coat ( = pan for 
frying, etc.). — ^Without the sign. There was no such sumptuary 
law among the Romans. 

10. In respect of. In comparison with. 

11. A cobbler. A botcher or bungler. 

12. Directly. Straightforwardly. Shakespeare in the same way 
uses roundly. 

Page 38. 16. Knave. Fellow; not in the bad modern sense. In 
O. E. (as in modern German, Knahe) it simply meant a hoy. Sir 
John Mandeville calls Mahomet "a poure knave." — Naughty. 
Good for naught or nothing. — Be not out. Cf. fall out. — If you be 
out. Here used in the second of the two senses, that is, at heels. 
Cf. out at elbows. 

27. Recover. Used in the two senses of recover and re-cover. 

29. Neat's leather. Ox leather. Neat is the O. E. word for 
cattle, and is still found in Scotland in the form of nowt. Cf. neat's 
foot oil. 

141 



142 JULIUS CMSATt 

34. To see Caesar. Caesar had just returned from Spain, 
triumphant over the sons of Pompey in the battle of Munda, in the 
spring of 45 b. c. 

40. Pompey (106-48 b, c). His successes in war first made 
him the idol of the Romans. He shared with Csesar the highest 
political honors, and married Caesar's daughter. Later they be- 
came hostile, and Pompey was forced to flee to Egypt, where he was 
killed. 

Page 39. 46. But. Merely or only. 

48. That. So that. — Tiber . . . her. Shakespeare makes the 
Tiber feminine; but the Romans made it masculine — "Father 
Tiber." 

49. Replication. Echo or reverberation. From Lat. replico, 
I fold or turn back. 

52. Cull out. Pick out as. 
57. Intermit. Put aside. 

61. Tiber banks. So we have in Act V Philippi fields; and 
in other plays, Pisa walls, Cyprus wars, music vows, the region 
kites. For this use of a proper name as an adjective, see Abbott, 
sect. 22. 

62. Till the lowest stream. That is, till the stream at its 
lowest be increased by your tears until it touches the top of the 
banks. A hyperbole of the strongest kind. 

64. Whether. Often used as a monosyllable by Shakespeare. 
The th is not pronounced here. — Metal. Another form of the word 
mettle; both from Gr. metallon, a mine. 
^ 66. Capitol. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and 
citadel of Rome (Capitolium), to which a victorious general, 
entering the city in triumph, rode to return thanks to Jupiter. 

67. Disrobe. Laurel crowns, tied with a white fillet, had been 
placed upon the statues of Caesar. 

68. Ceremonies. Trophies and scarfs. 

70. Lupercal. One of the most ancient Roman festivals, 
celebrated annually in honor of Lupercus, the god of fertility. 
It was held on the 15th of February, near the Lupercal, at the 
foot of the Mons Aventinus, where Romulus and Remus were 
said to have been found with their nurse, the she-wolf. The 
Luperci, or priests, sacrificed goats and young dogs, and ran 
through the city with thongs cut from their skins, touching and 
striking men and women. This act was a symbolic purification 
of the land, and the touching was a purification of the people. 

Page 40. 73. Vulgar. From Lat. vulgus, the common people. 

76. Pitch. The highest flight of a hawk or falcon. 

78. Servile. Such as befits slaves. From Lat. servuSf a 
slave. 



NOTES: ACT I, SCENE II 143 

Scene II 

Page 40. 11. Sterile curse. Curse of sterility. Csesar was 
now childless, his daughter having died. 
Page 41. 17. The press. The crowd. Cf. Chaucer :- 

Fly from the presse, and dwell with soothfastnesse. 

See also Mark ii, 4. 

20. The Ides. The Roman method of reckoning thie days of 
the month was pecuHar. The first of each month was called 
Kalends (Kalendar); the Nones {Nonal) were the 5th (but on 
the 7tli in March, May, July, and October); and the Ides (Idus) 
eight days later than the Nones. From these three fixed points 
the Romans counted backward. Thus the 30th of January was 
three days (taking in both the day counted from and the day 
counted to) before, or the third day before, the Kalends of Feb- 
ruary; and so on. The Ides of March, May, July, and October 
fell on the 15th day. 

26. Sennet. A piece of martial music, or a set of notes played 
on a trumpet as a signal for a procession to move. 

27. Order of the course. The manner in which the proces- 
sion is marshalled, and the direction in which it is led. 

30. Gamesome. Inchned for frolic. 

31. Quick. Lively. — Spirit. Turn of mind. 

36. As. That. Still in use by uneducated people. Shakespeare 
frequently uses it as a relative pronoun in this and other plays. 

37. You bear ... a hand. You are too distant and un- 
friendly. The metaphor is borrowed from horsemanship. 

Page 42. 41. Vexed I am . . . difference. I have been 
troubled by conflicting emotions. 

43. Conceptions . . .to myself. Thoughts or ideas which 
concern me only.^ — Proper. Peculiar. So we have in Shakespeare 
their proper selves, my proper hand. But in I, i, 28, proper means 
goodly. 

44. Soil. Tarnish, stain. — Behaviors. Shakespeare frequently 
uses the plural where the singular is generally employed. He 
means behavior on several occasions. 

51. By means whereof. And through this mistake. 

56. Just. Quite true. 

61. Where. Of instances in which. — Respect. Highest note 
or distinction. 

64. His. Probably written carelessly for their. 

Page 43. 73. Be not jealous on me. Be not suspicious of me. 
So we also find in Shakespeare, revenged on her death, fond on 
her, command upon me. 



141 JULIUS CMSAR 

74. Did use. Were accustomed. 

75. To stale. Make stale or common. 

78. After. Afterward. — Scandal. Speak evil of. 

79. Profess myself, etc. Show I profess friendly feeling for 
any one at a banquet. 

80. Rout. A mixed assembly. 

89. Indifferently. Impartially. 

90. Speed. Prosper. Cf. God-speed, a phrase very common 
in Bunyan. 

93. Outward favor. Personal appearance. 

Page 44. 97. I had as lief. I would prefer. Had is here an 
old subjunctive, like the German hdtte; and lief (O. E. leof) is an 
old adjective, meaning dear. 

103. Chafing with. That is, lashing the banks with violence, 
as if angry with them for restraining it. 

111. Hearts of controversy. With hearts that opposed and 
fought against the violence of the stream. 

112. Arrive. Strive at, reach; Lat. adripare, to come to the 
bank (ripa). So Dr. Abbott (sect. 198) gives in Milton, to creep 
the ground, to tower the sky; and in Shakespeare, aspire the 
clouds, depart the city, etc. 

114. .ffineas. Son of Anchises and Venus. At the sack and 
burning of Troy, he carried off his father Anchises on his shoulders. 
He is the hero of Virgil's ^neid, and the Romans regarded him 
as the founder of their nation. 

Page 45. 124. Color fly. That is, became white. The 
metaphor is taken from cowardly soldiers flying from their 
colors. 

126. His. Its; the neuter possessive pronoun is rarely used 
by Shakespeare. It is not to be found in the Bible of 1611. Its 
use became general only in the latter half of the seventeenth 
century. 

131. Temper. Constitution of body, temperament. 

132. Get the start of. Outstrip. — The majestic world. In 
contrast to " a man of such a feeble temper "; just as in hne 137 
it is "the narrow world," while Csesar is a Colossus. (CI. P. S.) 

138. A Colossus. The Colossus at Rhodes, one of the seven 
wonders of the world. It was an immense brazen statue that, 
according to tradition, spanned the entrance to the harbor of 
Rhodes, the chief city in the island of Rhodes, in the JEgean Sea. 
Ships entering the harbor had to sail between the legs of this 
statue. It was 105 feet high, and was ascended by a winding 
staircase. The name of this statue became a generic name for 
any very large statue; and hence, too, the meaning of the word 
colossal. 



NOTES: ACT I, SCENE II 145 

142. Our stars. The planets seen in the heavens at the time 
of one's birth. 

143. Underling. A double diminutive. El we find in pickerel, 
losel, etc. Ing in O. E. = son of. The two together now mark a 
contemptuous diminutive, as in lordling, witling, weakling; but 
not always, since we have darling ( = dearhng), yearling, found- 
hng, etc. 

148. Conjtire. Try to raise the dead by means of the names, 
as ancient conjurers pretended to do. 

Page 46. 153. Noble bloods. Patricians of high Hneage, men 
of renown. 

154. Since the great flood of Deucalion and Pyrrha. In 
Greek mythology, a flood covered the whole world and destroyed 
all mankind except Deucalion, king of Thessaly, and his wife 
Pyrrha. 

158. Rome indeed, and room. Room was the old pronuncia- 
tion of Rome, even up to the nineteenth century. Earl Russell, 
who died in 1877, always said Room. 

161. Brutus. Junius Brutus, who was the first Roman consul 
after the expulsion of the kings, and from whom the Marcus 
Brutus in the play claimed descent. — Brooked. Tolerated. 

^ 162. Eternal. With perpetual dominion. — His state. His 
high position of governing power. 

164. Nothing jealous. I have no reason to doubt that you love 
me. (Abbott, sect. 55.) For this adverbial use of nothing, 
compare I Henry IV (III, i): — 

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge. 

165. "Work me to. Incite me to do. — Aim. Idea or guess. 
168. So. Provided that. 

173. Chew. Ruminate, ponder deeply over. 

175. Repute. Account. To is frequently by Shakespeare 
omitted and inserted with infinitives in the same sentence. 

176. As. That. 

Page 47. 183. Proceeded. Taken place, happened. — Worthy, 
Shakespeare very frequently uses worthy without of. 

186. A chidden train. A company of men who have been 
scolded. 

188. Ferret . . . eyes. That is, eyes of a red color, with a 
keen sight Uke those of the animal. 

195. Sleep o' nights. Of was used in older Enghsh for during; 
and we still have it in expressions hke " He comes here of a Sun- 
day." Cf. of a sudden. (Abbott, sect. 176.) 

199. Well given. Well disposed. 



146 JULIUS CMSAR 

201. Yet, if my name, etc. Yet if a man who bears such a 
name as I, were capable of fear. 

206. He hears no music. He does not care about music; 
80 in the Merchant oj Venice (V. i. 83-88): — 

The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus; 
Let no such man be trusted. 

Page 48. 208. Scorned his spirit. Despised himself. 

210. Be. Used instead of are, for the sake of euphony. Be 
is English; are is a Danish word, formerly er. 

211. Whiles. An O. E. genitive, so long as, while; O. E. 
hwil time. Hence the phrase, to while away the time. 

215. For this ear is deaf. This, like Cicero's ferret eyes, is 
a touch of Shakespeare's own. (CI. P. S.) 

220.i Sad. Grave, weighed down with thought. 

231. Marry. Marie or Mary, an appeal to the Virgin Mary. 

233. Honest. Used in a patronizing way. 

Page 49. 242. Fain. Joyfully, gladly. O. E. Jaegen joyful. 
An O. E. hard g was frequently changed into an i, as from nagel 
and hagel we have nail and hail. 

244. Loth. Unwilling. O. E. lath.— To lay his fingers off it. 
To keep from fingering or touching it. 

246. By. Aside.— Still. Continually. 

247. Rabblement. A noisy crowd; Dutch rahhelen, to gabble. 
Rahhlement is a hybrid word; it is a Teutonic word with a Latin 
suffix, mentum. — Chopped hands. From working hard; hardly 
applicable to the Roman rabblement, who did no work at all. 

251. Swounded. Swooned. The d comes after the hquid, as 
in sound (from Fr. son), thunder, from O. E. thuner, gender from 
Fr. genre. 

255. The market-place. The Roman Forum, which occupied 
the low ground extending from the Capitoline Hill toward the 
low ridge of the Veha. (Co. S.) 

256. At mouth. Cf. at ease. Compare the phrase at mouth 
with others from Shakespeare; at door, at palace, at bright, on 
knees. 

257. Like. Often used for likely. — The falling-sickness. 
Epilepsy. The Comitia, or general assembly of the Roman people, 
was stopped if any one present was attacked by this illness; hence 
the disease was called Morbus comitialis. Suetonius, in his Life 



NOTES: ACT I, SCENE II 147 

of Julius Ccesar, states that " he was on two occasions attacked 
by the comitial sickness during the course of pubhc business." 

Page 50. 268. Plucked me. This is a vivid and colloquial 
use of the word me, and is called by some grammarians the ethical 
dative. Shakespeare used it frequently. Thus, in The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona (IV, iv), he says: "He steps me to her 
trencher and steals her capon's leg." So too, " peels me," " knocks 
me." — Ope. Open. — Doublet. Outer garment. 

269. An. If. 

270. Occupation. The word is here used with a sneering 
reference to Mmself, and seems to have a double meaning. " If 
I had been a mechanic, like the others," and " If I had been a 
practical man, with an eye for an opportunity." 

274. Worship = worthship. The word ship is found in several 
forms in English. It is the noun from the verb shape (O. E. 
scyppan). With land it appears as scape (landscape; Milton 
writes landskip); in other words as ship, e. g., Ibrdship. 

288. It was Greek. Quite unintelligible. Though here, as in 
other places, Casca talks with an assumed ignorance, he, like 
other well educated Romans, knew Greek. 

Page 51. 296. Your mind hold. You are still inclined to 
have my company. 

301. Quick mettle. A hvely fellow. Cf. note on I, i, 64. 

304. However. Although. — Tardy form. Slow way of speak- 
ing and acting. Shakespeare is fond of throwing the emphatic 
noun into the form of an adjective. Thus he speaks of the " shady 
stealth" ( = stealing shadow) of a dial; and in The Merchant of 
Venice, the '' sad ostent " of Antonio means the appearance of 
sadness. , 

305. Sauce. From Latin salsum, something salted. The I 
has been changed into u, as in French saumon, chaud (calidus), 
beau { = hellus), etc. 

312. Of the world. Present state of political affairs. 

315. From that it is disposed. Supply to. 

316. Likes. We have a few English adjectives used as nouns 
in the plural, as goods, greens, etc. In some parts of England 
the phrase is still found, " the likes of you." 

317. Seduce. From Latin ducere, to lead, and se, aside. 

320. He should not humor me. Should not influence me 
nor try to change my mind by taking notice of my likings or 
dislikings. 

321, Hands. Handwritings. 

Page 52. 326. Seat him. A reflexive verb, equivalent to sit. 
327. Endure. We will either shake him or endure worse daya 
in suffering the consequences of our attempt. 



148 JULIUS C^SAR 

Scene III 

1. Brought you, etc. Did you escort Csesar to his house? 

■3. Sway of earth. All the steady and equable movement of 
the earth. The y represents an old hard g, which reappears in 
swagger. 

4. Unfirm. Unsteady, unstable. Un is the Enghsh negative 
prefix; in is the Latin. But unfirm here is = not firm; while infirm 
would be = weak. 

6. Rived. Modem form riven, which is never used by Shake- 
speare. Danish rive. From this verb comes rift; as from thrive 
we have thrift; from drive, drift, etc. 

8. Exalted with. Raised as high as. From Latin altus, high. 

14. Anything more wonderful. Supply "that was" after 
more, using more in the sense of else. Dr. Abbott thinks it means, 
more wonderful than usual; Delius, more wonderfuL than what 
you have already told me. 

Page 53. 20. Against. Over against, or right opposite to. 

21. Who glared. Who is often used of animals, particularly 
in similes when they are compared to men. (Abbott, sect. 264.) 

22, 23. Drawn upon a heap. Drawn togethier into a mass. 
26. Bird of night. The screech-owl. 

31. Portentous. Things of portent or evil omen. From Latin 
pro, forth, and tendere, to stretch. 

32. Climate. Country. In Shakespeare's time the word 
climate had no reference to differences of temperature. (Craik.) 
— Point upon. Indicate. 

33. Strange-disposed. Strangely disposed. 

34. Construe things . . . fashion. Explain things in their 
own way. 

35. Clean, etc. Quite away from and contrary to their real 
meaning. 

42. What night. What a night. Shakespeare frequently 
omits a after what, in the sense of what kind of. (Abbott, sect. 86.) 
Page 54. 47. Submitting me. Exposing myself. 

48. Unbraced. Shakespeare, in matters of dress, speaks of 
the costume of his own time. (CI. P. S.) 

49. The thunder-stone. Thunder-bolt. 

50. Cross. Zigzag. So, in Xing^ Lear (IV, vii, 35), we have: — • 

The most terrible and nimble stroke. 

60. Case yourself in wonder. Dress yourself in wonder. (CI. 
P. S.) 

61. Strange impatience. Strange, unsettled state of the 
heavens. 



NOTES: ACT I, SCENE III 149 

64. From quality and kind. Contrary to their real nature; 
analogous to, a wall off the perpendicular, where a preposition and 
noun = an adjective. — From is frequently used by Shakespeare 
in the sense of apart from, away from. Thus in Hamlet, '' Any- 
thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing." (Abbott, 
sect. 158.) 

65. Fool. Play the fool. — Calciilate. Reflect, or become im- 
naturally reflective. 

67. Pre-formed faculties. Faculties intended by original 
design for certain special ends. (CI. P. S.) 

68. Monstrous quality. The quality or condition of monsters. 
Page 55. 71. Monstrous state. State in an abnormal con- 
dition. 

76. Prodigious grown. Grown portentous. 

79. Let it be who it is. It is of no consequence who it is. 

80. Thews. Sinews; the word thigh, O. E. theoh, is related 
to it. 

81. Woe the while! Alas for the evil time on which we have 
fallen. While is here in the dative case, as in the phrase, Woe is 
me! ( = to me). 

83. Sufiferance. What we endure. 

94. Retentive to. Capable of keeping in. 

Page 56. 113. My answer must be made. I must be answer- 
able, or take the consequences. 

115, 116. Such . . . that. We would now say "such . . . 
as." But such . . . that is common in Shakespeare. (Abbott, 
sect. 279.) — Fleering. Jeering, gibing. — Hold, my hand. Here 
is my hand as a pledge. 

117. Be factious. Get up a faction, or opposition party. 
— Griefs. Grievances. 

122. Undergo. Undertake. 

123. Honorable-dangerous. Such compound epithets are 
usual with Shakespeare. Thus we find: more active-valiant, or 
more vahant-young (1 Henry IV, V, i), crafty-sick, senseless- 
obstinate, silly-stately, etc. (Abbott, sect. 2.) — Consequence. 
Result. 

125. In Pompey's porch. The meeting place of the conspirators. 
It was a building adjoining a theater which Pompey had built. 
Cf. line 151 of this scene. 

127. The element. The air. 

Page 57. 128. In favor. In appearance. 

130. Stand close. Keep out of sight. Close is from Lat. 
claudo, I shut, through the French. Hence close and clause are 
the same word in different forms. From the same root we have 
enclose, dose (a cathedral close). 



150 JULIUS C^SAR 

134. Incorporate to. One who has a hand in, or is privy to — a 
fellow-conspirator. 

135. Stayed for. Expected. 

136. I am glad on't. This is said in reply to the first remark, 
that Casca is " one of us." 

137. There's two or three. " When the subject is as yet 
future, and, as it were, unsettled, the third person singular may 
be regarded as the normal inflection." 

142. Praetor's chair. Where the prcetor urhanus, or city 
magistrate, sat to try cases. The praetor urbanus was the chief 
magistrate in the administration of justice. 

143. Where Brutus may but find it. Where Brutus alone, 
or only, may find it. Dr. Abbott thinks the phrase is = cannot 
but find. Professor Craik conjectures that but is a misprint for 
best. 

147. Is at the beginning of a question in Shakespeare has often 
many subjects attached to it. See line 137. 

Page 58. 154. Is ours. Three parts, or the sum of three 
parts, forms the subject to is. 

155. Next encounter ( = meeting) yields him ours. The next 
meeting makes him completely one of our party. 

158. Countenance. Support. — Alchemy, which changes in- 
ferior metals into gold. 

161. Right well conceited. Formed a good idea of. 

ACT II 

Scene I 

Page 59. Orchard. Garden. 

I. What. An interjection. 

3. Give guess how near to day. Guess how near daylight it is. 
10. It (the delivery of Rome from tyranny) must be by his 
(Caesar's) death. 

II. Spurn at. Be angry with. 

12. For the general. On account of the community at largo, 
the people. Cf. Hamlet (II, ii, 457): "For the play, I remember, 
pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general." 

14. The bright day. The sunshine of prosperity. — Brings 
forth. From its lurking-place. 

15. Craves. Calls for or demands. A craven is a man who 
has craved for his life, hence a coward. — Wary walking. Cautious 
movements. — That. Yes, or grant that we do. 

17. Do danger with. Do mischief with. 

Page 60. 19. Remorse. Tender feeling, compassion. 



NOTES: ACT II, SCENE I 151 

21. A common proof. A matter of common experience. 
26. Degrees. Steps. 

28. Prevent. Hinder him from doing so. — Quarrel. A cause 
of complaint against Caesar. 

29. Will bear no color. Can carry upon the face of it no 
pretext for putting him out of the way. Briefly, the clause means: 
Since the complaint can have no plausible pretext in what he 
(Caesar) now is. . . . 

30. Fashion it thus. Let us put it in this way. — Augmented. 
Caesar's power increased. 

31. These and these extremities. Such and such lengths. 
33. As his kind. This may mean either " according to his 

nature," or " like the rest of his species." 

Page 61. 44. Exhalations. Meteors. 

47. Redress. Redress our grievances. 

49. Instigations. From Lat. instigo, to prick on. The stig 
in instigo is found also in the Greek stigma and the Lat. stimulus. 

51. Piece it out. Make it into a whole thought. 

52. One man's awe. The awe of or for one man. The sub- 
jective genitive is here used instead of the objective with of. 
Cf. God's fear = the fear of God. 

56. I make thee promise. I make a promise to thee, or I 
promise thee (dative). 

64. Motion. Impulse toward it. 

65. Phantasma. A creature of the imagination. From Greek 
phaino, I show. Hence also phantasy (contracted into fancy), 
phantom, phantastic, phenomenon, etc. 

66. The genius and the mortal instruments. The reasonable 
soul and the bodily powers. (CI. P. S.) 

Page 62. 68. Suffers. Undergoes. 

69. The nature of, etc. A kind of insurrection. 

70. Your brother (-in-law) Cassius. The wife of Cassius waa 
Tunia, sister of Brutus. 

72. Moe. More. 

73. Plucked about. Pulled down over. 

75. That. So that. — May discover. May originally meant 
to be able; and we still have this meaning in the two nouns from 
it, might and main. 

76. Any mark of favor. Features. Cf. I, ii, 93. 

77. Faction. Band of conspirators. 

78. Sham'st thou. Art thou ashamed. 

79. Evils. Evil things. 

83. Path, etc. Walk or march openly in thy natural form. 

84. Erebus. The third of the five divisions of Hades, the un- 
seen worldt 



152 JULIUS C^SAR 

85. From prevention. From being found out. 

86. Are too bold upon your rest. Have too boldly intruded 
on your slumbers. 

Page 63. 90. And (there is) no man. 

98. Watchful cares. Cares that keep you awake. 

104. - Fret. Break the edges of the clouds. 

107. Growing on. Getting nearer to. 

108. Weighing. Considering. — Youthful season. Spring; 
month, March; day, 15th. 

110. Presents his fire. Shows his rays. 

Page 64. 115. The sufferance of our souls. What our soub 
suffer. — The time's abuse. The abuses, or corruptions, of the 
time. 

116. Break off betimes. Go away at once. 

117. Hence. Be off. — Idle. Where he may lie in idleness; 
or unoccupied. (Co. S.) 

118. High-sighted tyranny. Tyranny with lofty looks. 

119. Drop by lottery. Fall and die by the chance determina- 
tion of the tyrant — 'as accidentally, to all appearance, as if he 
had drawn lots. — These. These considerations which I have 
urged. 

123. What. Why. 

124. Other bond (need we). 

125. Secret Romans. Romans who can keep a secret; modern 
form secretive. 

126. Palter. To trifle, babble, equivocate. The meaning is 
shown in Macbeth (V, viii, 19) : — • 

And be these juggling fiends no more believed, 
That palter with us in a double sense; 
That keep the word of promise to our ear, 
And break it to our hope. 

127. Honesty to honesty engaged. Honest men pledged to 
honest men. 

129. Swear. Used here transitively; as we say, " swear him 
to secrecy." — Cautelous. Suspicious, and deceitful. 

130. Carrions. Carcasses, a contemptuous epithet. 

132. Doubt. From Lat. dubito, from duo, two. Cf. Ger. 
zweifel, from zwei. 

133. Even. Stainless, unblemished, without a flaw. 

134. Insuppressive. That cannot be kept under or subdued. 

135. To think. By thinking. — Our cause (which is so good), 
or our performance (the resolute way in which we will act in 
fighting against tryanny), need any oath to keep us up to the 
mark. 



NOTES: ACT II, SCENE I 153 

138. Several bastardy. Each individual drop of blood is to 
be considered as guilty of a separate (several) act of ill-faith, 
which proves it to be illegitimate. 

141. Sound. There are four words of this spelling in our 
language. Sound, from Latin sonus, a sound (Chaucer always 
writes soun); sound (^ whole), from Latin sanus (hence sanity, 
etc.); sound, sl narrow strait (said to come from O. E. sund = 
swumd = wh&t can be swum across); and sound, to measure the 
depth of, from Low Lat. subundare, to put under the wave. 

Page 65. 144. Silver suggests 'purchase and buy. (CI. P. S.) 

147. Ruled our hands. Directed or influenced us. 

148. No whit. In nothing. 

150. Let us not break with him. Let us not communicate our 
plans to him. In modern Enghsh it would have been: Let us not 
break (the matter) to him. 

157. Of him, that is, in him. 

158. A shrewd contriver. A clever and mischievous schemer. 
The original meaning of shrewd seems to have been evil, mis- 
chievous; then cunning. 

164. Envy. Mahce. Cf. Merchant of Venice (IV, i, 10): — 

Carry me out of his envy's reach. 

Page 66. 169. Come by. Come at, get possession of; still in 
use. 

180. Purgers. Purifiers of the land from tyranny. Cf. "Pride's 
Purge"; that is, the clearing out of the Long Parliament by 
Colonel Pride. 

187. Take thought. Fall into g, melancholy state, become 
subject to care. Cf. 1 Samuel ix, 5: " Let us return; lest my 
father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us." And 
Hamlet (IV, v, 188):— 

Thought and aiiiiction, passion, hell itself 
She turns to favor and to prettiness. 

188. That were much he should. It would be a hard thing for 
him to do. 

190. There is no fear in. We need not be afraid of him. Here 
fear is used in the objective, not in the subjective sense. 

Page 67. 196. Quite (away) from. Cf. King John (IV, i) \— 

I am best pleased to be from such a deed. 

— Main opinion. Strong opinion. 

197. Fantasy. Imagination; now shortened into fancy. — Cere- 
monies. Religious rites and signs. 

198. Apparent prodigies. Prodigies, or portents, which are 
appearing. Here the participle ending ent ( = Lat. ens) has its 
real force. 



154 JULIUS C^SAR 

200. Augurers (more commonly augurs). Soothsayers, a 
kind of prophets who judged of coming events by the notes and 
flight of birds, the behavior of the sacred chickens while pecking 
their corn, etc. 

203. O'ersway. Persuade him over to a different course. 

204. Unicorns betrayed with trees, etc. These devices are 
described by Pliny. In order to capture the unicorn (rhinoceros, 
or rather monoceros), the hunter ran behind a tree, against which 
the animal rushed violently, so that his horn stuck in the tree. 
A mirror was placed before the bear; and while he gazed on it, 
the hunter was enabled to take sure aim. Elephants were be- 
trayed into holes sHghtly covered. 

206. Toils. Nets, traps, pitfalls. 

212. There. At Caesar's house, not at the Capitol. 

216. Who. Because he. Cf . Lear V, iii, 48. — Rate (from Lat. 
reor, ratus, reri, to think) is used also by Shakespeare in the sense 
ijf to value. Here it means to hlame or chide. 

218. By him. By his house. 

220. Fashion him. Shape him to our purposes. 

Page 68. 225. Put on. Betray. 

227. Formal constancy. Dignified self-possession. 

235. Commit. Often used by Shakespeare in the sense of 
entrust. Thus, Midsummer Night's Dream (II, ii): "Commit 
yourself into the hands of one that loves you not." 

240. Across. Folded. 

245. Yet . . . yet. Still . . . still. 

Page 69. 246. Wafture. Waving. Wave is also used by 
Shakespeare as=to beckon. From wave comes waft; as from 
drive, drift; rive, rift, etc. 

250. Humor. Moody whim. 

253. Shape. Personal appearance. 

254. Condition. Temper, disposition. 

255. Dear my lord. My dear lord; not an uncommon trans- 
position. Dr. Abbott, sect. 13, says: '' The possessive adjectives, 
when unemphatic, are sometimes transposed, being readily com- 
bined with nouns, like the Fr. monsieur, milord." And he gives: 
Good my brother, sweet my mother, poor our sex, good your high- 
ness, good my girl. 

259. Come by it. Be restored to health. 

261. Physical. Belonging to physic; that is, hygienic, tending 
to health. 

262. Unbraced. Cf. I, iii, 48. 

263. Dank. A form of damp. 

264. Wholesome. From heal, and connected with health, 
healthy, etc. 



NOTES: ACT II, SCENE I 155 

266. Rheumy. Tending to colds, catarrh, rheumatism, etc. 
— ^Unpurged. Unpurified. 

268. Sick offence. Cause of harm. 

271. I charm you. I beseech you by charms. Charm comes 
through Fr., from the Lat. carmen, a song. Milton hence uses 
it in its Hteral sense when he speaks of " the charm of early 
birds." 

275. Heavy. With sorrow. 

Page 70. 276. Had resort to. Come to visit. 

283. Sort. In some degree, in a kind of way. — Limitation. 
Within certain bounds. 

285. In the suburbs. Not in your heart, not in the center. 

297. Fathered. A past participle made out of a noun. Cf. 
landed, talented, broad-acred. 

299. Have made strong proof of my constancy. Have put my 
strength of will to a severe proof. "His wife Portia was the 
daughter of Cato, whom Brutus married being his cousin, not a 
maiden, but a young widow 'after the death of her first husband, 
Bibulus, by whom she had also a young son called Bibulus, who 
afterwards wrote a book of the acts and gests of Brutus, extant 
at this present day. This young lady being excellently well seen 
in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a noble 
courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her 
husband what he ailed, before she had made some proof by her- 
self: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's 
nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber, 
gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight 
all of a gore blood: and incontinently after a vehement fever took 
her, by reason of the pain of her wound. Then perceiving her 
husband was marvelously out of quiet, and that he could take 
no rest, even in her greatest pain of all, she spake in this sort unto 
him: ' I being, O Brutus,' said she, ' the daughter of Cato, was 
married unto thee, to be partaker with thee of thy good and evil 
fortune. Now for myself, I can find no cause of fault in thee 
touching our match: but for my part, how may I show my duty 
towards thee and how much I would do for thy sake. I cannot 
constantly bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which re- 
quireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess that a woman's wit com- 
monly is too weak to keep a secret safely; but yet, Brutus, good 
education and the company of virtuous men have some power 
to reform the defect of nature. And for myself, I have this benefit 
moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, -the wife of Brutus. 
This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things be- 
fore, until that now I have found by experience that no pain or 
grief whatsoever can overcome me.' " — Plutarch, Marcus Brutui,, 



156 JULIUS C^SAR 

Page 71. 307. All my engagements. All I am pledged to 
others to do. — Construe. Explain. 

308. The charactery of. The marks or lines of thought traced. 
From Gr. character, a mark engraved;, from charasso, I engrave. 

311. Caius Ligarius. A mortal enemy of Caesar's. 

313. Vouchsafe. Deign to accept. 

315. Wear a kerchief. Badge of a sick person. Kerchief is 
from Fr. couvrir, to cover, and chef, the head. 

321. Discard my sickness. Ligarius throws off his kerchief. 
Discard, originally meant to throw useless cards out of the hand. 

323. Exorcist. The general meaning attached to this word 
is one who lays spirits. Shakespeare always uses it in an opposite 
sense, one who raises them. 

Page 72. 324. Mortified spirit. The spirit that was dead 
within me. 

331. To whom. To him to whom. — Set on your foot. Lead on. 



Scene II 

1. Nor heaven nor earth have been. Shakespeare generally 
uses the singular, but sometimes the plural with nor, nor. 

5. Present. Immediate. 

6. Success. Good fortune. Success (from Lat. succedere, to 
come after) means literally issue or result. Shakespeare has both 
the phrases had success and good success. 

Page 73. 11. Ne'er looked but on my back. That is, they 
had not the daring to confront me. 

13. I never stood on ceremonies. I never attached any im- 
portance to religious signs, such as those seen and reported by 
augurs. 

22. Hurtled, Clashed, as with weapons coming heavily 
together. 

25. Use. Custom, usage, ordinary occurrence. 

27. Whose end. The end of which. The subjective genitive 
whose is employed for the objective genitive. 

Page 74. 49. Consumed in confidence. Used up in rashness. 

Page 75. 67. Afeared. Afraid. Both forms are found in 
Shakespeare. — Graybeards. The senators; the word is used in 
a contemptuous sense. 

75. Stays. Keeps, detains. Stay is generally in Shakespeare 
an intransitive verb; but he frequently makes it transitive, in 
the sense of to keep from falling, to keep back, to detain. 

76. To-night. Said of the night just past. 

Page 76. 89. Cognizance. An heraldic emblem, or badge, 



NOTES: ACT II, SCENE III 157 

worn by tlie members of a particular family or party. In a techni- 
cal sense, tinctures are the metals, colors, and furs of heraldry. 
The thought in this passage is that men will strive to get rehcs 
as a memorial of Csesar. 

93. Know is in the imperative mood. 

96. A mock. A jibe, a piece of ridicule or derision. 

97. Apt to be rendered. Likely to be made. 
103. ' Proceeding. Your political life or career. 

104. And reason to my love is liable. My reason is under con- 
trol of, and subservient to, my love. 

Page 77. 108. Publius. Perhaps the nephew of Mark Antony. 

110. Stirred. Up, out of bed. 

119. I am to blame. I ought to be blamed. 

Page 78. 128. That every like is, etc. That things which 
look like one another are not the same. Csesar said like friends, 
and Brutus regrets that they are not really friends. The adjective 
like is used as a noun. (Abbott, sect. 5.) Cf. Measure for Measure 
(11, iv):— 

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. 

129. Yearns. Grieves. It is frequently confounded with 
yearn, to long for. Shakespeare always uses the word in the sense 
of to grieve or vex; and in the old edition it is spelled em or earn. 



Scene III 

7. Security. Freedom from care, false confidence. The 
word comes from the Lat. sine curd, without care. Sine is short- 
ened into se, and this gives the adjective securus, which originally 
had the subjective sense oi free from care, not the objective modern 
sense of safe. The two meanings are well illustrated in a line of 
Ben Jonson's: — • 

Men may securely sin, but safely never. 

— Gives way to conspiracy, i^llows conspiracies to be formed, 
opens the way for them. 

8. Lover. Friend. 

12. Emulation. Jealous or malicious rivalry. Cf. Troilus and 
Cressida (II, ii, 212):— 

Whilst emulation in the army crept. 

14. The Fates. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos — divinities of 
the unavoidable. — Contrive. Hatch plots. 



158 JULIUS C^SAR 

Scene IV 

Brutus has in the meantime told the secret of the conspiracy 
to his wife, who is distracted by the possession of it. She senrls 
off the errand-boy without having given him any message. 

Page 79. 6. Constancy. Firmness of purpose, of which she 
had boasted to her husband. 

18. Bustling rumor. Noise of tumult. Rumor is here used in 
its primary sense of noise. 

20. Sooth. In sooth; lit. in truth, from O. E. sodh, true. 

Page 80. 31. Know'st thou. Thou used to strangers who 
were not inferiors was an insult. " If thou thoust him thrice, it 
shall not be amiss" {Twelfth Night, III, ii) is the advice given 
to Sir Andrew Aguecheek when on the point of writing a challenge. 
— ^Harm's intended. That is intended. Cf. the expression, " We 
speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." 

37. Void. Open. 

42. Brutus hath a suit. This is said to lull any suspicions 
that the boy might be disposed to form from the strange conduct 
of Portia. 

45. Merry had a wider sense in Shakespeare's time. An ordi- 
nary compHment was, " God rest you merry." 

ACT III 

Scene I 

Page 81. The murder of Caesar took place in the Curia of 
Pompey, not in the Capitol. But this error in historical statement 
was a time-honored one in England. 

3. Schedule. A small leaf of paper. From Lat. schedula, 
the diminutive of scheda, a strip of papyrus. 

4. O'er-read. Read and attentively consider. 

8. Ourself . Self is here a noun. It is used for myself in Shake- 
speare by persons of high rank. Cf . Richard II (I, iv) : — 

We vnW ourself in person to this war. 

— Served. Attended to. 

10. Sirrah. Dr. Schmidt remarks that this word is never 
found in the plural, and that it is "a compellation used in ad- 
dressing comparatively inferior persons." — Give place. Make 
room, get out of this place. 

Page 82. 18. Makes to Caesar. Advances toward him. Ci, 
Sonnet LX, i: — 

As the waves make towards the pebbled shore. 



NOTES: ACT III, SCENE I 159 

19. Sudden. Quick in execution. Cf. King John (IV, i), 
" Therefore I will be sudden and despatch." — Prevention. Casca 
was to strike first. Shakespeare used prevent (Lat. prevenire, to 
come before) in its primary and literal sense, as we find it in the 
Prayer-book, " Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings." Cf. 
Hamlet (II, ii, 305), " So shall my anticipation prevent your dis- 
covery." And in this play, V, i, 103. 

21. Cassius or Caesar, etc. Either Cassius or Caesar shall 
never return aUve. (CI. P. S.) 

22. Constant. Steady, firm in mind. 

28. Presently. Now or immediately. But Shakespeare also 
uses it in the modern sense of shortly, soon. — Prefer. Present. 

29. Addressed. Ready. 

Page 83. 36. Couchings. Humiliating and cringing attitudes, 
prostrations. Shakespeare uses the word also in the sense of "to 
fawn in order to obtain something." 

38. Pre-ordinance and first decree. What has been ordained 
and decreed since the creation of man. 

39. Law of children. Mere childish caprices. — Be not (so) 
fond. Do not be so foohsh as. 

42. With. By. This is a very frequent use of with in Shake- 
speare. Thus in Much Ado (V, i), " We had our two noses snapped 
off with two old men; " and in Twelfth Night (I, v), "I saw him 
put down with an ordinary fool." And such phrases as " backed 
with France," ** torn to pieces with a bear," and " marred with 
traitors." 

43. Low-crooked. Bending low. 

47. Know . . . satisfied. Ben Jonson gives us another version 
of this passage — "Many times he [Shakespeare] fell into those 
things could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person 
of Csesar, one speaking to him, ' Csesar did never wrong but with 
just cause.' " Again, in the Induction to The Staple of News, 
Jonson makes Prologue say, " Cry you mercy, you never did wrong 
but with just cause." It was somewhat invidious and ungracious 
in Jonson to pubHsh such a comment after Shakespeare's death, 
and many years after the publication of the play, in which no such 
passage appears. It may have been altered, or the blunder may 
have been that of a player when Jonson happened to be in the 
theatre. Gifford supposed Shakespeare to have originally written 
the passage thus: — 

If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him. 

I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. 
Met. Caesar, thou dost me wrong. 
Cces. Caesar did never wrong but with jvist cause. 



160 JULIUS CMSAU 

The passage, as it now stands, Gifford set down as the " botchery " 
of the players, and it wanted, he said, both congruity and poetry. 
It is extremely improbable that the players should have made any 
such alteration, Jonson's criticism not being pubhshed before 
1623; and there is in reality no incongruity in the passage. Csesar 
asks what is amiss that he must redress, upon which Metellus 
comes forward. Csesar then interrupts him, and assuming that 
Metellus wishes to sue on behalf of his brother, who has been 
banished, he spurns him away; adding 

Know, Caesar doth not wrong: nor without cause 
Will he be satisfied. 

51. Repealing. Recalling from exile, a very frequent meaning 
in Shakespeare. Lat. re, back, and appello. I call. Cf. Two 
Gentlemen of Verona (V, iv): — 

Repeal thee home again. 

54. Freedom of repeal. Liberty to come back, permission for 
recall from banishment. Freedom is here used in the sense of 
franchise or warranted right. 

57. Enfranchisement. Recall from banishment. Generally 
used by Shakespeare in the sense of release from prison or slavery, 
or of recall from exile. 

58. Well moved. Easily persuaded. — As. Such a one as. 

59. If I could pray to move. If my prayers could have in- 
fluence over others. If I could pray others to move from their 
purpose, as you do. (CI. P. S.) 

61. Resting. Not subject to motion or change. 

Page 84. 65. One in all. The pole or northern star. 

67. Apprehensive. Of quick intelligence, endowed with ap- 
prehension. Shakespeare never uses the word in the modern 
sense of fearful. Sometimes it means imaginative. 

69. Holds on his rank. Keeps his place, and hence is firm in 
his purpose. 

70. Unshaked of motion. Unshaken in his motion. 

74. Olympus. The extreme eastern part of the great chain of 
mountains which formed the northern boundary of ancient Greece 
f7as called Olympus. Its shape was that of a blunt cone, about 
1,700 feet high, and it was covered with perpetual snow. It was 
regarded as the chief seat of the gods. 

75. Bootless kneel. Kneel to no purpose. 

76. Speak, hands. Casca invokes the aid of his hands to 
strike a trusty blow. 

77. Et tu, Brute! And you too, Brutus! According to Sue- 
tonius, Csesar never uttered a word when the conspirators were 
despatching him. Et tu, Brute! — this expression is not in Plutarch, 



NOTES: ACT III, SCENE I 161 

but it occurs in the old play, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke 
of York, on which the Third Part of King Henry VI was founded : 
" Et tu, Brute, wilt thou stab Caesar, too? " 

80. Pulpits. The rostra, from which the orators addressed the 
people. These stood in the Forum. They were called rostra 
(beaks), because they were adorned with the beaks of ships and 
other naval trophies. In III, ii, 65, the phrase public chair is used. 

Page 85. 86. Confounded . . . mutiny. Dazed mth this up- 
roar or commotion. 

91. Nor to no. Nor to any. The genuine Enghsh custom is 
to make negatives intensify each other; the Latin idiom is to 
make them nullify each other. Milton prefers the Latin usage: 
"Nor did they not perceive him"=They did see him. But 
Chaucer has as many as four negatives in one couplet : — 

He never yit no vileinye ne sayde 
In al his lyf unto no maner wight. 

94. Abide this deed. Await the consequences of this deed. 

101. Stand upon. Attach importance to. 

Page 86. 114. Accents. Language. 

116. Pompey's basis. The plinth, or pedestal, on which 
Pompey's statue stood. 

118. Knot. Band, because knit together in unity of feehng. 

123. A friend of Antony's. After Caesar's assassination, the 
conspirators, according to Plutarch, retired to the Capitol, whither 
they were followed by Antony's son. 

132. Resolved. Informed. 

Page 87. 137. Thorough. Through; spelt so when a dissyl- 
lable. Shakespeare frequently uses this form for through. — Un- 
trod state which we have now entered upon. 

141. So please him come. If it please him to come. 

144. Well to fdend. As a good friend to our party. Cf. the 
German zum Freunde. Shakespeare frequently uses to in this way. 

146. And my misgiving, etc. My presentiment of evil always 
turns out to be very much to the purpose. (CI. P. S.) — Still. 
Constantly. 

151. Little measure. The si'se of Caesar^s corpse. 

153. Let blood. Bled to death, murdered. Shakespeare uses 
this phrase four times. The most striking passage is in RichaTa III 
(in,i):- 

Tell him, Catesby, 
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries 
To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret castle. 

—Rank. Quite diseased, and therefore requiring blood letting. 
168. Ye . , . you. Ye is the usual nominative, and you the 



162 JULIUS C^SAH 

objective, in older Eng. Dr. Abbott says, sect. 236, " Ye seems 
to be generally used in questions, entreaties, and rhetorical ap- 
peals." But, if an unaccented syllable or an unemphatic pronoun 
is wanted, ye is used. 

159. Reek. O. E. rec. The Low-German form of the High- 
German Ranch. So Edinburgh is called Auld Reekie, and the 
capital of Iceland, Reikiavik = Smoke Town. 

160. Fulfil your pleasure. Do what you will with me. Were 
I to live a thousand years, etc. 

Page 88. 161. Apt to die. Fit foy death, ready to die. 

163. By ( = beside) Caesar. — By you. The means of his death. 

172. The first fire is a dissyllable; the second a monosyllable. 
— Pity (drives out) pity. Pity for Rome causes us to have no pity . 
toward her enemy. 

175. In strength of malice, etc. Our arms, in the strength of 
their hatred of tyranny, and our hearts, with brotherly feeling, etc. 

176. In. Into our hearts. 

178. Voice shall be as strong. Opinion shall have as much 
weight. 

182. Deliver. Tell. 

Page 89. 193. Conceit me. Think that I am. Conceit is 
never used by Shakespeare in the modern sense. He uses it with 
four meanings: conception, invention, mental power, or parts. So, 
in still older English, " Dan Chaucer is a conceited clerk " = an 
educated person (clerk) of great ability. 

197. Dearer. More keenly or acutely. Shakespeare uses the 
adjective dear of disagreeable feelings also. Cf. Love's Labor's 
Lost (Vi,i):— 

Deafed with the clamor of their own dear groans. 

203, 204. Close in terms. Come to terms. Cf. the ordinary 
phrase, to close with. 

205. Bayed. Brought to bay, as a hunted creature by 
hounds. 

. 207. Signed. Marked by thy blood. — Spoil appears to be a 
technical term for the division of the prey after it has been taken. 
— Lethe. Delius supposes that, as Shakespeare elsewhere uses 
Lethe for one of the rivers of the infernal world, he here applies 
the term to the blood as the stream or river of death. But he may 
have derived it from the Lat. letum, death. Pope reads death. 

208, 209. Hart . . . heart. A play on words, called by Cole- 
ridge a miserable quibble. 

214. Modesty. Moderation. 

Page 90. 217. Pricked in. Marked among. The ceremony 



NOTES: ACT III, SCENE I 163 

of pricking names written on a paper is still used in nominating 
sheriffs. 

219. Therefore. For that purpose. 

222. Upon (the strength of) this hope. 

225. Regard. Consideration, capable of favorable considera-- 
tion. 

231. In the order of, etc. In the regular course of the cere^ 
monies of the funeral. 

236. By your pardon. With your leave. 

Page 91. 242. True rites. Genuine and usual rites. 

244. Fall. Happen. The more usual form is befall. Shake- 
speare sometimes drops the he, while he employs the verb as 
having 'the force of that prefix. 

258. In the tide of times. Since the tide of time began to 
flow. The original meaning of tide was time; and it is the Low- 
German form of the High-German Zeit. It was afterwards ap- 
propriated to the regular flow of the sea. Shakespeare sometimes 
uses it in its older sense. Cf. King John (III, i): — 

Set 
Among the high tides in the calendar. 

265. Cumber. Lie heavy on, and vex. 

Page 92. 270. All pity (being) choked. — With custom. By 

the usualness. — Fell. Fierce or savage. 

272. Ate. The goddess of mischief. "Where did Shake- 
speare get acquainted with this divinity, whose name does not 
occur, I believe, in any Latin author? " (Craik.) In the Greek 
tragic writers she is the goddess of vengeance. She is four times 
mentioned by Shakespeare. 

274. Havoc. From Welsh ha fog, destruction; to cry havoc 
meant that no quarter was to be given to a vanquished enemy. 
— Let slip. As hounds are slipped from the leash. In an old book 
on the Art of Hunting {Art of Venerie) this sentence occurs: "We 
let shp a greyhound, and we cast off a hound." — Dogs of war. In 
the prologue to Henry V, Shakespeare calls " famine, sword, and 
fire " the hounds of war. 

276. Groaning for burial. It is not an uncommon thing in 
some parts of the country still to say of a corpse which begins to 
show signs of decomposition that " it calls out loudly for the 
earth." (CI. P. S.) 

284. Passion. Deep grief, sorrow. 

290. No Rome of safety. Play upon the word room and th^* 
pronunciation of Rome. 

294. Take. Look upon or think of. 



164 JULIUS C^SAR 

Scene II 

Page 93. 1. Satisfied. Have satisfaction and good reasons 

for the assassination of Csesar. 

10. Severally. Separately. 

11. Is ascended. Verbs of motion in Shakespeare's time were 
construed with the verb to be, not with the verb to have. Cf. 
V, iii, 25 of this play. Shakespeare writes: is escaped, is entered 
into, are marched up, is rode, is stolen away, am declined. 
(Abbott, sect. 295.) 

13. Brutus was a Stoic, and disdained popular arts. He was 
brought up by his uncle Cato in the old austere Roman manner. 
He neither showed emotion nor cared to excite it. It was said of 
him that, in speaking Greek, he preferred the brief, compressed 
(laconic) mode of the Lacedemonians. This speech is quite in 
that character. 

16. Censure me. Judge my acts. In most instances in Shake- 
speare the noun censure means simply opinion, and the verb 
simply to estimate. In very few passages has it the modern mean- 
ing of blame. 

17. Awake your senses. Keep your ears on the watch ( = 
wake). 

Page 94. 28. There is. A plural noun with a singular verb 
is common in Shakespeare. But, in fact, es was a plural in Old 
English; it was the plural of verbs in the Northern Dialect. Trevisa 
(writing in the fourteenth century) mentions that the English 
language was " a-deled a thre " — that is, in three dialects, the 
Northern, the Midland, and the Southern. The Northern formed 
the plural of its verbs in es; the Midland in en; and the Southern 
in eth. 

40. The question, etc. How and why he was assassinated is 
formally explained and regist-ered in the Capitol. 

41. Extenuated. Lessened. (From Lat. extenuo, I make thin.) 

42. Offences enforced. His sins too glaringly exposed, or 
exaggerated. 

Page 95. 60. Grace. Honor. 

63. Not a man depart. " This optative use of the subjunctive, 
dispensing with let, may, etc., gives great vigor to the Shake- 
spearian Hne." (Abbott, sect. 365.) And he quotes Othello 
(I, ii):- 

Judge me the world. 

66. Chair. The rostra or "pulpit" from which Brutus had 
just spoken. 

68. Beholding. Beholden, indebted. The form beholding is 



NOTES: ACT III, SCENE II 165 

found in Shakespeare nineteen times; but beholden not once (ex- 
cept in two quarto editions of one play — Richard III). 

Page 96. 77. To bury Caesar. As when Shakespeare talks of 
Caesar's doublet, the clock striking, etc., so here he uses the cus- 
toms of his own country. In Rome, bodies were burned. 

80. So let it be with Caesar. That is, let Caesar's goodness be 
buried with him. 

83. Answered. Atoned for. 

90. Brutus is an honorable man. Antony constantly brings 
this statement of opinion regarding Brutus 's character opposite 
to the statement of some fact favorable to Caesar; and thus pre- 
pares the way for lessening and at length destroying the value of 
that opinion. 

92. The general coffers. The public treasury. 

94. When that. So, as, and that were used as suffixes to in- 
terrogatives for the purpose of turning them into relatives. Thus 
whoso, whereas, when that. In the same way we have if that, 
though that, lest that, etc. (Abbott, sect. 287.) 

Page 97. 98. The Lupercal. A cave in which Romulus and 
Remus, according to tradition, were found. In this passage, on the 
Lupercal means " during the feast of the Lupercal." 

117. Abide it. Suffer for it. 

Page 98. 123. And none so poor to do him reverence. "And 
even the poorest man thinks himself too good — too superior — to 
show him any respect." (Delius.) 

130. Than I will wrong. The construction requires than to 
wrong. 

134. I do not mean to read. Here Antony excites their curiosity ; 
and thus, unconsciously to themselves, makes his hearers desirous 
of his friendship. 

140. Issue. Children. 

Page 99. 153. I have o'ershot myself. I have gone too far. 

155. Whose daggers. Here he calls up a strong and visible 
image of the actual stabbing, in order to excite disgust. The 
Fourth Citizen is by this time quite conquered. 

169. Far. Probably a contraction of farther. From farre, the 
old comparative of far, found in Chaucer. So also nerre and derre, 
for nearer and dearer. 

175. He overcame the Nervii. This battle was fought 57 b. c. 
It was perhaps the most desperate fight in which Caesar was ever 
engaged. The Nervii — according to Plutarch, " the stoutest 
warriors of all the Belgae " — lived in French Flanders and Hainault 
in Belgium. Plutarch adds, " They were all in a manner slain in 
the field." Antony thus appeals to the Romans' love of conquest 
and mihtary fame. 



166 JULIUS CMSAR 

Page 100. 181. As rushing. As if rushing. — To be resolved. 

To be informed if it were Brutus who, etc. 

194. Flourished. Triumphed. It means " to thrive and be 
prosperous," while the rest of the state had "fallen down." 

196. Dint. Impression. The primary meaning is a stroke; 
the secondary, an impression of a blow. 

206. About! Let us be off. 

Page 101. 211. Good friends. Antony now restrains them 
for a little, that he may make their rage greater. 

218. I am no orator. Brutus had spoken in a stiff and formal 
manner; Antony's speech was the merest talk— the art which 
conceals art. 

222. Wit. Ability. The earliest meaning is simply knowl- 
edge, or the power of knowing. Hence the senses were called the 
five wits. See Romeo and Juliet (I, iv). Then wit came to mean 
internal sense, as in Much Ado About Nothing (III, v): " His wits 
are not so blunt." Sometimes it means in Shakespeare the imag- 
inative faculty, as in Midsummer Night's Dream (IV, ii): " It is 
past the wit of man to say what dream it was." Or it means 
common-sense, as in Two Gentlemen of Verona (IV, iv) : "If I had 
not had more wit than he." And so the word has gradually nar- 
rowed down to its modern meaning. 

224. Right on. In a straightforward way. 

Page 102. 244. Seventy-five drachmas. About $11. 

251. On this side Tiber. Caesar's gardens and pleasure grounds 
were on the Janiculan Mount on the farther side of the Tiber, not 
on the side on which the Forum stood, where Antony's speech 
was deHvered. North's Plutarch led Shakespeare wrong. 

253. To walk abroad (in). Cf. " Arrive the point proposed," 
I, ii, 112. 

Page 103. 268. Upon a wish. As soon as I have wished him. 

272. Belike. Probably. 

Scene III 

2. Charge my fantasy. Fill or burden my imagination. 

3. Forth of. Out of. 

Page 104. 9. Directly. Straightforwarc^ly. 

12. You were best. It were best for you. The old phrase, 
^' Me were better " = '' It were better for me," but was mistakenly 
changed to " I were better." And then " You were better " and 
" You were best " were introduced. In the same way, the modern 
" If you please " is not always seen to be=" If it please you." 

19. You'll bear me a bang for that. You will have a blow from 
me for that. 



NOTES: ACT IV, SCENE I 167 

25. For your dwelling. Tell us where you live. 

35. Turn him going. Send him " to the right about." 



ACT IV 

Scene I 

Page 106. The real scene of the meeting was not Rome, but an 
islet in the Reno, near Bologna, about 300 miles north from Rome. 

6. Damn him. Condemn him to death. (CI. P. S.) 

9. Charge. Expense. 

12.. Slight, unmeritable. Insignificant and undeserving. The 
word unmeritable is found in only one other place in Shakespeare, 
Richard III (III, vii). 

14. Three-fold world. Europe, Asia, and Africa. 

15. You thought him fit to have a share in the empire. 

17. Proscription. In this proscription there were put to death 
2,000 knights and 300 senators. 

Page 107. 27. Graze in commons. In is frequently used by 
Shakespeare for on. Cf. Measure for Measure (IV, ii): "There is 
written in your brow honesty and constancy;" and Troilus and 
Cressida (IV, ii): " Would he were knocked in the head." 

30. Appoint. Order, assign. Cf . the phrase " armed and ap- 
pointed will " frequently used by Shakespeare. 

31. It. Used contemptuously. 

32. To wind. Turn, wheel around. 

33. His corporal motion. The motion of his body. 

34. Taste. Sense. 

38. Staled. Made common. 

39. Begin his fashion. Are the beginning of a new fashion to 
him. 

40. Property. Mere appendage, a piece of stage furniture. 
A property-man is one who has the charge of the appendages 
about a theater. 

42. Levying powers. Raising troops. — Make head. Shake- 
speare uses the phrases raise head, make head, and gather head, 
for to collect an army. 

46. How. The verb consult, upon which how depends, must 
be extracted from sit in council. 

Page 108. 47. Answered. Met. 

48. At the stake. As a bear or bull that is baited by dogs. 

51. Millions -of mischiefs. So Shakespeare has "a million 
of manners " {Two Gentlemen of^ Verona, II, i), " a million of beat- 
ing; " and we speak of the million, for the multitude, 



168 JULIUS C^SAR 

Scene II 

7. In his own change of disposition toward me. 
12. Regard and honor toward you. 

16. Familiar instances. Signs, tokens, or marks of familiarity. 
Page 109. 23. Hot at hand. Hard to be curbed or held in. 

25. Should endure. Come to endure. 

26. They fall. Let fall. Shakespeare frequently uses fall as a 
transitive verb. — Jade. A worthless or ill-trained horse. 

28. Sardis. Once the capital of Lydia; it stood at the foot of 
Mount Tmolus, on the river Pactolus. It is now a heap of ruins. 

40. Sober form. Unruffled countenance. Shakespeare fre- 
quently uses form for behavior. 

41. Be content. Calm yourself. 
Page 110. 42. Griefs. Grievances. 

46. Enlarge. Dwell upon them at large, state them to me in 
full. 

48. Charges. Divisions, troops the commanders have charge 
of. 

Scene III 

1. That you have wronged me. The opening of this quarrel 
scene — one of the poet's most magnificent efforts — was suggested 
by North: "The next day after, Brutus, upon complaint of the 
Sardians, did condemn and note Lucius Pella for a defamed per- 
son, that had been a praetor of the Romans, and whom Brutus 
had given charge unto. . . . Now, as it commonly happeneth in 
great affairs between two persons, both of them having many 
friends and so many captains under them, there ran tales and 
complaints betwixt them. Therefore, before they fell in hand 
with any other matter, they went into a httle chamber, and bade 
every man avoid, and did shut the doors to them. Then they 
began to pour out their complaints one to the other, and grew 
hot and loud, earnestly accusing one another, and at length fell 
both a weeping." 

2. Noted. Put a mark or stigma upon, branded with disgrace. 

4. Praying on his side. Taking his part. 

5. Slighted off. Put aside with easy contempt. 

8. Nice. Trifling, petty, insignificant. — Bear his comment. 
Be discussed and criticised. His = its. (Abbott, sect. 356.) 

10. Condemned to have. Condemned for having. — An itching 
palm. A greedy desire for money. Cf. Troilus and Cressida 
(II, i,):- 

My fingers itch (to strike). 



NOTES: ACT IV, SCENE III 169 

II. Mart. Make traffic of. Mart is a contracted form of 
market. 

Page 111. 20. What villain, etc. Who of those that touched 
his body was such a villain that he stabbed for any other motive 
than justice? (CI. P. S.) 

30. To hedge me in. To put me under restraint. 

32. Go to. An exclamation of impatience, hke our familiar 
phrase, Get out! 

36. Have mind upon your health. Take care of yourself; I 
shall have to attack you. 

Page 112. 39. Choler. Anger. 

44. Budge. Flinch from my resolution. 

45. Observe you. Be always watching and adapting myself 
to your caprices. 

47. Venom of your spleen. The poison of your anger. Venom, 
from Lat. venenum, poison. The old writers on physiology made 
the spleen the seat of the passions and emotions. 

52. Vaunting. Boasting. 

Page 113. 75. Indirection. Unfair or dishonorable means. 
Cf. the use of directly ( = straightforwardly) in I, i, 12, and III, iii, 9. 
Cf . also Polonius's statement in Hamlet (II, i, 66) : — 

By indirections find directions out. 

80. To lock. As to lock. — Rascal. Literally the scrapings 
and refuse of anything. A rascal in Shakespeare's time also meant 
a lean deer not fit to hunt or kill. — Counters here means money; 
hterally they are round and flat pieces of bone or metal, used in 
calculations. 

84. Rived. Tom or cleft; instead of nyen. 

Page 114. 97. Conned by rote. Learned by heart. Con is a 
form of ken and of kn-ow. Both come from O. E. cunnan, to know; 
and this word also gives us the words cunning, can, knowledge. Rote 
is from Lat. rota, a wheel. 

101. Plutus. The god of riches. 

107. Scope. Free range. 

108. Dishonor shall be humor. Any indignity that you show 
me, shall be regarded as a mere passing feeling. 

III. Enforced. Struck with violence. 
112. Straight. At once. 

Page 115. 119. Rash humor. Quick temper. 

121. Over-earnest. Too eager. 

132. Cynic. A snarhng or rude fellow. The term comea 
from the Gr. kuon, a dog, and was generally applied to the fol- 
lowers of Diogenes, who cultivated rude manners. 

Page 116. 135. I'll know his humor. I will acknowledge 



170 JULIUS CJESAR 

and make allowance for his humor, when he chooses the proper 
time to exercise it. 

136. Jigging fools. Doggerel rhymesters. " In Shakespeare's 
time a jig did not always mean a dance; it sometimes meant a 
ballad, and the air to which it was sung." Cf. Hamlet, III, ii, 108. 

137. Companion. Fellow. The word is used in a contemptuous 
sense. 

152. Upon. In consequence of. — Impatient . . . grief. Im- 
patience and grief were the causes of her death. There is here a 
mixture of two constructions. 

155. Distract, etc. _ Though Plutarch and numerous other 
ancient writers give this account of the death of Portia, it is 
more probable, from the correspondence of Cicero and notices 
in other works, that she died of a hngering illness after Brutus 
had left Italy. 

Page 117. 166. Call in question, etc. Consider the critical 
position in which we are. 

171. Bending their expedition. Directing their march on 
Phihppi, a city in Macedonia, founded by Philip, father of Alexan- 
der the Great; now called Filibah or Felibejik. 

179. Proscriptions. Here is a trisyllable; but in Hne 181 a 
quadrisyllable. 

Page 118. 192. Once. At some time or other. 

195. In art. Cassius had learned as much of this hy study 
in the Stoic philosophy as Brutus, but his natural strength of 
mind could not bear it so composedly. 

197. Alive. With the hving; they had been talking about 
the dead. 

202. Doing himself offence. Doing himself harm. But con- 
nect offence with defence in the next line. They will have been, 
as it were, fighting against themselves; we shall be full of the 
power of defence. 

Page 119. 204. Of force. Of necessity. 

206. In a forced affection. Not thoroughly well-disposed 
toward us. Affection and contribution have both the -tion as a 
dissyllable. 

208. By them. Through their country. But the next hy 
ihem=hy their help. — Make a fuller number up. Obtain rein- 
forcements. 

215. Tried the utmost of. Put the most extreme pressure 
upon. 

222. Bound in shallows. Hemmed in by shallows. 

225. Ventures. What we have risked. Venture was in Shake- 
speare's time the technical term for a cargo. So the merchants 
of Bristol called themselves Merghant Adventurers. 



NOTES: ACT V, SCENE I 171 

227. The deep of night. Twice used by Shakespeare for the 
middle or stillest part of the night. 

Page 120. 229. Niggard with. Take a scanty allowance of. 
Probably no other writer has ever used niggard as a verb; and 
Shakespeare has used it so only twice. 

242. Knave. Lad. It is often used by Shakespeare as a term 
of endearment, as in such phrases as my good knave, or good my 
knave, gentle knave, my friendly knave, my pretty knave. — O'er- 
watched. Wearied out with watching. 

243. Other = others. (Abbott, sect. 12.) 

Page 121. 252. Otherwise bethink me. Change my mind. 

256. Much forgetful. Shakespeare and his contemporaries 
used much with adjectives. We now use it only with participles. 
We find in Shakespeare much guilty, much sea-sick, much ill, much 
sorry, much unequal, much sad, etc. 

263. Yoimg bloods. Young people. 

268. Murderous. Perhaps because sleep resembles death. 

269. Mace. Once used for sceptre. 

Page 122. 276. Who comes there ? " Brutus boldly asked 
what he was, a god or a man, and what cause brought him hither? 
The spirit answered, ' I am thy evil spirit, Brutus, and thou shalt 
see me by the city of Philippi.' Brutus, being no otherwise afraid, 
rephed again unto it, ' Well: then I shall see thee again.' The spirit 
presently vanished away." — North's Plutarch. 

281. Stare. Stand on end. 

290. False. In much the same sense Shakespeare has the 
phrases a false gallop, false Latin, false French, false reckonings, 
false strains, false traits, etc. 

Page 123. 306. Set on his powers betimes. Put his troops 
early in motion. 

ACT V 

Scene I 

Page 124. 4. Battles. Battalions, brigades, or divisions in 
order of battle. 

5. Warn. Summon or challenge. 

7. Am in their bosoms. Am in their confidence, or know 
what they are going to do. 

8. Content. Well pleased.— Could = would. (CI. P. S.) 

10. Fearful bravery. Fearful is used by Shakespeare in the 
subjective sense of full of fear; as well as in the modern or ob- 
jective sense of terrible. Here the meaning seems to be that they 



172 JULIUS CMSAR 

cover their fear by bravado or display (bravery). — ^By this face. 
In this manner, by this display. 

11. Fasten in our thoughts. Make us believe. 

17. Even. Level. 

Page 125. 19. Exigent. Emergency, exigency. An adjective 
for a noun, as frequently in Shakespeare. 

20. So. As I have said. 

24. Answer on their charge. Attack them when they attack 
us. 

25. Make forth. Set forth. 

33. Posture. The direction and force. But Dr. Schmidt 
suggests nature. Are is wrongly used for is. 

34. Hybla. There were three places of the name in Sicily. 
It is unknown which of them was famed for honey. The bees 
fed on the thyme which grew on the hills; hence the honey's 
exquisite flavor. 

Page 126. 41. Fawned like hounds, etc. This is based upon 
Plutarch, " They all made as though they were intercessors for 
him, and took Caesar by the hands, and kissed his head and breast." 

46. This tongue would have been silenced in death if Cassius's 
advice had been taken. 

48. The cause. The business on which we have come. 

51. Goes up. Is sheathed. 

52. Caesar's three and thirty wounds. Theobald reduced the 
number of wounds to three and twenty, as given by Plutarch, 
Appian, and Suetonius. As Shakespeare followed Plutarch so 
closely in details, the higher number is probably a printer's error. 

53. Another Caesar, etc. Another Caesar (myself) have fallen 
by the sword of traitors. 

58. Strain. Race; still in use, but applied only to dogs, horses, 
etc. 

59. Honorable. Adjective for adverb. 

60. A peevish school-boy. Octavius was only twenty-one 
years of age. Peevish has generally in Shakespeare the meaning 
of childish and thoughtless. 

61. A masker and a reveller. See I, ii, 205, and II, ii, 116. 
65. Stomachs. Inclination, appetites. 

Page 127. 70. As. '' As is apparently used redundantly with 
definitions of time (as hos is used in Greek with respect to motion). 
It is said by Halliwell to be an eastern counties' phrase." (Ab- 
bott, sect. 114.) 

75. Held Epicurus strong. Had great faith in the doctrines 
of Epicurus. Epicurus (born 342 b. c.) regarded human happiness 
as the end of philosophy. The summum honum consisted in 
tranquillity and peace of mind. 



NOTES: ACT V, SCENE III 173 

77. Do presage. That point out the future. 

78. Former. Foremost. 
81. Consorted. Attended. 

85. As. As if. (Abbott, sect. 107.) 

Page 128. 90. Very constantly. With the greatest firmness. 

103. Prevent the time of life. Anticipate the natural term, 
or end, of our existence. 

105. Stay. Await. Shakespeare usually employs on or upon 
with stay in this sense. 

Scene II 

Page 129. 1 . Bills. Notes, written directions, general orders. 
3. Set on. Attack. 

Scene III 

3. Ensign. Standard-bearer. 

Page 130. 4. It. The standard-eagle, which he carried. 

6. Advantage on, instead of over. 

7. Fell to spoil. Began to plunder. 

11. Far. Probably iov farther. Cf. note on III, ii, 169. 
19. With a thought. Quick as thought. 
21. Thick. Dim. 

25. His compass. Its circular course. 

Page 131. 29. Make to him, etc. That are hastening to him. 
38. Swore thee. Made thee swear. — Saving of thy life. In 
saving thy Ufe. 

41. Be a freeman. Earn your freedom by putting me to 
death. 

42. Search. Pierce. 

51. Change. The ups and downs of fortune. 

Page 132. 68. Apt. Impressionable. 

Page 133. 88. Regarded. Respected. 

89. This. The act of suicide is the part ( = duty) of a Roman. 

96. In = into. — Own proper. A tautology. Shakespeare uses 
proper for own, as in Tempest (III, iii, 60) : " Men hang and drown 
their proper selves." There are four instances of the double 
phrase own proper. 

101. Breed thy fellow. Produce another like thee. — Moe. 
More. Cf. II, i, 72. 

104. Thassos. An island now called Thaso, in the iEgean Sea, 
off the Thracian coast. — The latter touching portion of this 
grand and truly Roman panegyric is wholly Shakespeare's. The 
first part is from North: " So when he was come thither, after he 



174 . JULIUS C^SAR 

had lamented the death of Cassius, calling him the last of the 
Romans, being impossible that Rome should ever breed again so 
noble and vahant a man as he, he caused his body to be buried." 

Page 134. 105. Funerals. Shakespeare uses this word only 
twice in the plural. 

106. It refers to funerals. 

109. 110. Ere night ... a second fight. As a matter of fact, 
the second battle of PhiUppi was fought twenty days after the 
first. 

Scene IV 

2. What bastard doth not? Who is so base-born as will not? 

8. Know me for Brutus. For this use of for cf . Hamlet (IV, 
vii, 2) ; " You must put me in your heart for friend "; and V, i, 196, 
where Hamlet talks of Yorick: " A pestilence on him for a mad 
rogue ! " 

12. Only I yield to die. I yield only to die. Cf. this position 
of only with that of but in V, i, 88, and V, v, 42. 

Page 135. 32. Is chanced. Has happened or fallen out. 

Scene V 
Page 136. 13. That noble vessel. Cf . Winter's Tale (III, iii) :— 

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow 
So filled and so becoming. 

And in several passages woman is spoken of as " the weaker 
vessel." 

15. List. Listen. 

Page 137. 45. Respect. Reputation. Cf. I, ii, 61. 

46. Smatch. Tincture. This is the only instance of this 
word in Shakespeare. The word is probably a form of smack. 

Page 138. 59. Lucilius* saying true. Lucilius had said (V, 
iv, 21) that" no enemy shall ever take alive the noble Brutus." 

60. Entertain them. Take them into my service. 

61. Bestow. Invest, put to use. 

62. Prefer. Recommend. Cf. Cymheline (IV, ii): ''The 
emperor's letters should not sooner than thine own worth prefer 
thee." 

71. Common good to all. " It was said that Antonius spake 
it openly divers times, that he thought that of all of them that 
had slain Caesar, there was none but Brutus only that was moved 
to do it as thinking the act commendable of itseK; but that all 
the other conspirators did conspire his death for some private 



NOTES: ACT V, SCENE V 175 

maUce or envy that they otherwise did bear unto him." — North's 
Plutarch. 

Page 139. 77. His bones. His corpse. Shakespeare fre- 
quently uses hones in this sense. 

79. The field. The armyin the field. 

80. Part. Share. 



QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 

By Cornelia Beare 
Instructor in English, Wadleigh High School, New York City 

READING REFERENCES 

Bagehot. Shakespeare the Man. 

Baker. The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist. 
Brandes. Shakespeare: His Mind and Art. 
Coleridge. Notes of Shakespeare's Plays. 
Dowden. Shakespeare: His Mind and Art, pp. 255-258. 
Dowden. Shakespeare Primer. 
Gervinus. Commentaries, pp. 698-721. 

Green. Short History of the English People. (For historical set- 
ting.) 
Hazlitt. Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, pp. 23-30. 
Hazlitt. Shakespeare. 
Lee. A Life of William Shakespeare. 
Phillips. Outlines of the Life of William Shakespeare. 
Plutarch. Lives: Brutus, Cassius, Caesar, Antony. 
Raleigh. Shakespeare (English Men of Letters Series.) 
Snider. Historical Commentaries, pp. 144-228. (Drama.) 
Ulrici. Dramatic Art, pp. 195-200. 

PRELIMINARY STUDY 

Topics for Study 

1. Figures of speech. 

2. Versification. 

3. Structure of the drama. 

4. Special study of the plays of Shakespeare as early, middle, late. 
Classified : 

(1) By external evidence, 
(a) Registration. 

(6) Allusions in other works. 

(2) Partly by internal evidence. 

(a) Reference to other works. 

lb) Reference to historical facts, etc. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY: ACT I, SCENE I 177 

(3) Wholly by internal evidence, 
(a) Rhyme of blank verse. 
Q)) Feminine endings. 

(c) Light or weak endings, 

(d) Nature of the plot. 

5. History of the drama before Shakespeare's time. (Cf. Dowden's 

Shakespeare Primer.) 

6. ■ Theater of Shakespeare's day. 

7. Study of the life of the period. 

(a) In Black's Judith Shakespeare. 
(6) In Bennett's Master Skylark, 

8. History of the time of Csesar. 

Topics for Themes 

A. OutHnes only. 

1. Nature and structure of the drama. 

2. Classification of Shakespeare's plays. 

B. Outline and theme. 

1. The theater of Shakespeare's day. 

2. Stratford {vide Leland's The Shakespeare Country and 

Irving's Sketch Book, "Stratford"). 

3. A scene from Shakespeare's life. (Imaginary largely.) 

For instance: the deer-stealing episode; the first days 
in London; the first appearance on the stage; the first 
production of Julius Ccesar; the return to Stratford; a 
night at the Mermaid. (Aim to reflect the spirit of the 
time and the nature of the man.) 

STUDY OF JULIUS C^SAR 

ACT I 

Scene I 

' l.)What was the condition of the common people at this time 
{vide history)? How does this scene show it? What is the chief 
characteristic of the people as dwelt on here? 

2. Comment on the use of prose, of blank verse. Pick out five 
lines not in normal iambic pentameter and specify wherein each 
differs, scanning to prove your point. 

3. Pick out and name five striking figures; show why each is 
used; in every case possible, rewrite in unfigurative language. 

4. What is the effect of the tone in which Caesar is mentioned? 
Of the last words of Flavins? Which of the tribunes is the leader? 

5. Write in thirty words what has been accomplished by the 



178 JULIUS CMSAR 

Scene II 

I. What side of Caesar's character is brought out? What is the 
effect of this? 

^2. What is Casca*s attitude as first seen? 

Cs. In the dialogue between Brutus and Cassius, state what char- 
acteristics of each are revealed. 

4. State briefly Cassius's estimate of himself, as given in 11. 68- 
80. 

5. In 11. 84-91 ("I would not," etc.), state exactly Brutus's 
feelings toward Caesar and his feeling of honor. 

6. LI. 92-133 ("I know that," etc.) sum up Cassius's grievances. 
What error does he make in judging Caesar? 

7. Why does this speech have so little effect on Brutus? 

8. LI. 137-163 ("Why, man ... as a king"). To what in 
Brutus is Cassius appealing here? How does it succeed? 

9. LI. 164-177. State Brutus's attitude. 

10. What glimpse of Cicero is given here? What impression is 
conveyed by it? 

II. How do Caesar's words to Antony (11. 194-216) reveal, in 
part, the secret of his greatness? 

12. Compare this view of Casca with the previous. Sum up 
his character. Explain the use of prose in this and the previous 
scene. 

13. LI. 311-326. What light is thrown on Cassius? Answer 
fully. 

14. State in seventy-five words what has been accomplished by 
the scene. 



Scene III 

1. What is the effect of the storm after the two previous scenes? 

2. What side of Casca's nature is seen here? Add to your 
prg3(ious estimate. Does it change any previous opinion of him? 

(^.. How does Cicero appear here? 

^. Compare Cassius's tone toward Casca with that toward 
Brutus. Explain and account for the difference. 

5. Select examples of: (1) antithesis, (2) metonymy, (3) meta-" 
/jhor, (4) simile, (5) apostrophe, (6) personification, (7) synecdoche, 
(8) irony, (9) exclamation, (10) interrogation. 

6. What has been accomplished by Act I? Who is the central 
figure? What important actors have been introduced and in what 
aspect? What is your impression of each? 



TOPICS FOR STUDY: ACT II, SCENE I 179 
ACT II 

Scene I 

I^]ir3^^t is the significance of Brutus's troubled mind? 
2r^ow does this scene form a fit sequel for the close of Act I? 
3. State in your own words Brutus's reasoning in 11. 10-34. 
How do the hnes interpret his nature? What danger is there in 
putting such a man at the head of a conspiracy? Does Cassius see 
this? If so, why does he persist? 

/' 4.,, What were the relations between Brutus and Csesar? 
^"5^ L. 12: "He would be crowned." What is Brutus's view of 
Caesar's refusal of the crown on the previous day? 

6. Should the fact that Brutus has no evidence of any case 
where Caesar's "affections swayed more than his reason" do away 
with his fears? 

7. L. 40. What is the point of his question, " Is not to-morrow 
the Ides of March?" Where have the Ides been mentioned? In 
what way? What is the effect of this question on the audience? 

8. Show wherein the letter is peculiarly fitted to appeal to 
Brutus. What things have conspired to convince Brutus of the 
fact that he is to be the saviour of his country? 

9. LI. 61-69. "Since Cassius ... an insurrection." What 
significance lies in the fact that he has been "whetted against 
Caesar" at first by outside arguments, not by inward convictions? 
In the light of this statement, how do you explain Brutus's words 
in I, ii, when, in talking with Cassius, he speaks of being " vexed 
with passions of some difference," etc.? 

10. What is the significance of the fact that Brutus contradicts 
each suggestion that is made by Cassius as to details for the action 
of the conspirators? Which of the two is the wiser? Defend your 
answer. Give points on both sides. 

11. If Cassius so fears Antony, why does he not press his point? 

12. What side of Caesar's nature is brought out by Cassius's 
and Decius's words at the close of the scene? Why? 

13. In what relation does Decius stand to Caesar? Why is he 
in the conspiracy? In the case of each conspirator, what seems to 
have led him to enter the plot? Comment fully, and on the sig- 
nificance of this fact. 

14. How does Brutus's action toward Lucius (11. 229-233) show 
his nature? 

15. Discuss fully Portia's character as shown here: the motives 
which lead her to act, the traits of character shown by her acts, 
those which would lead a man like Brutus to love her, those which 
make her a fit mate for him. By birth and ancestry, with whesa 



180 JULIUS CMSAB 

are her sympathies? Does she suspect what is on foot? Give the 
reason for your answer. 

16.^ Note that Brutus goes out immediately afterward with 
Ligarius; goes with him to Caesar's house, and from there to the 
senate with Caesar. Has he given Portia, do you think, any clew? 
(See Scene IV.j If so, when? 

Scene II 

1. What is the general tone of this scene, especially at first? 
How is it secured? Its purpose? 

2. What side of Caesar's character is first presented here? How 
long does it last? Is his belief in auguries a sign of weakness? 
Why? 

3. In his interview with Decius, point out each thing that 
strengthens your sympathy for Caesar; that weakens it. How 
does Decius finally win him? 

4. What seems to be Brutus's attitude? How is it shown? 
What is its significance? 

Scene III 

1. Explain how Artemidorus has definite proof of a conspiracy 
but just formed. 

2. Comment on his estimate of Caesar; of the motives that un- 
derlay the conspiracy. 

Scene IV 

1. Explain this scene, especially Portia's part, in the light of 
question 15 on Scene i of Act II. 

2. Could Portia have gained the knowledge as you think Ar- 
temidorus did? Why? 

3. What is the effect of the soothsayer's words? Of the fact 
that three outside the conspiracy know of it? Do you think any- 
one has played false? If so, who, and why? 

4. What is the effect of these two short scenes and their general 
tone? 

Pick out all instances of rhyme in Act II. Show how it is used. 

Comment 'on the use of prose and verse in the two acts. Give 
a general rule as to the use of prose. For this, study especially 
Casca's words at various times. 

ACT III 
Scene I 

1. What significance is in the opening words? Where have they 
been heard before? 

2. What is the effect of Caesar's rebuff of Artemidorus on the 
feelings of the audience toward Caesar? 



TOPICS FOR STUDY: ACT III, SCENE II i81 

3. Cassius says, "We fear prevention" (1. 19); explain his mean- 
ing and account for his fear. Why does he turn to Brutus for ad- 
vice and to Casca for action? What is your estimate of Cassius? 

4. In the interview with .Metellus Cimber and others begging 
for the repeal of the decree of banishment, how does Caesar show 
himself? What is the effect on your feelings for him? What is the 
effect of this interview just at this point? 

5. How does Caesar bear himself at his death? What is the 
effect of his last words? Their effect on such a man as Brutus? 

6. What significance lies in the fact that Caesar's death is fol- 
lowed by no general rejoicing, that all outcry is made by the con- 
spirators? 

7. Criticise Antony's message by the servant and give your 
opinion, very fully, of the message and the sender. What light 
does it throw on Cassius's estimate of Antony? 

8. If Cassius has "a mind that fears him much" (1. 145), why 
does he not insist on Antony's death? 

9. What impression is produced by Antony's words on his entry? 
What is their general tone? Compare with Brutus's estimate of 
him (II, i). What is the effect on Brutus? 

10. In Antony's reply, "I doubt not. . . . Dost thou here lie" 
(11. 184-211), how much is natural feeling, how much studied for 
its effect on Brutus? 

11. Is Antony's request to speak at Caesar's funeral unnatural? 
Why? 

12. In the light of your answer to 11, comment on (a) Brutus's 
permission, (b) Cassius's anxiety, (c) Brutus's confidence in him- 
self. 

13. Where before has Brutus overridden Cassius's objections? 
Have any of these objections borne fruit? If so, when? 

14. Comment on Antony's character as revealed by his dealings 
with the conspirators; by his words over the body of Caesar, when 
alone. What would you state as his chief attribute? 

Scene II 

' 1. What seems to be the general feeling regarding Caesar's 
death? What is the significance of this? 

2. State Brutus's speech briefly; compare it with his soliloquy 
(11, i). Why is it in prose? What are its strongest points? Its 
weakest? Outline it, show wherein it is illogical or unpractical. 
Criticise its fitness for its purpose. 

4^3v Comment on the effect on the people. What irony is there, 
in view of the fact that Brutus had killed Caesar lest he might be 
crowned? Account for Brutus's blindness to this. 



182 JULIUS CM&AR 

4. Comment on Antony's words, "For Brutus sake I am behold- 
ing to you " (1. 68) . 

5. Outline Antony's speech and treat it as you did Brutus's in 
question 2. 

6. Indicate, at each interruption, its effect thus far upon his 
auditors. 

7. To what class of people would Brutus's speech appeal? An- 
tony's? Show just what elements in the mob Antony appeals to, 
in what order, how, and with what effect. 

8. Do you feel that Brutus deserves his failure? (Answer very 

fully.) 

9. In Antony's words to the servant at the close of the scene, 
what new light is thrown upon his character? 

Scene III 

What is the purpose of this scene? What element in the Roman 
mob is brought out? What is its effect on your feelings for Antony? 
How far are the conspirators responsible? 

ACT IV 

Scene I 

1. How long is it since Act III? 

2. Comment on the nature of the occupation of the men, espe- 
cially in the light of Brutus's soliloquy in II, i. 

3. Who is the Lepidus here mentioned? Where is he spoken of 
before? Why is he in the triumvirate? 

4. How old is Octavius by years? By acts? Compare him with 
the dead Csesar; apply to him Brutus's words, "I have not known 
when his affections swayed more than his reason," and comment 
on their fitness or unfitness to him. 

5. What side of Antony is here shown? Has it appeared before? 
Where? 

6. Comment on the fitness of these two men for working to- 
gether. 

Scene II 

1. What is Brutus's attitude? What has wrought the change? 

2. Comment on his talking the matter over with Lucilius. With 
whom is your sympathy, Brutus or Cassius, and why? 

3. What is the significance of this discord in the conspiracy? 

4. What, in Brutus's words, "Cassius, be content . . . au- 
dience" (11. 41-47), was peculiarly fitted to sting Cassius? Is it 
intentional on Brutus's part? State the reasons for your answer. 



TOPICS FOR STUDY: ACT V, SCENE I 183 

Scene III 

1. State Cassius's cause of complaint. Give your view as to its 
justice. Comment on Brutus 's reply, ''You wronged yourself to 
write in such a case" (1. 6). 

2. Criticise Cassius's defense of this act and his charge against 
Brutus. 

3. Is there any justice in Brutus 's attack on Cassius? Comment 
on Brutus's views here as to the reason for Caesar's death. 

4. Is Cassius's self-defense, "Brutus, bait not me," etc. (1. 28), 
just? Why? 

5. What is Brutus's real grievance? Comment, in the light of 
the opening words of this scene. 

6. In the light of Cassius's attitude throughout the scene, com- 
ment on his feeling toward Brutus. What is the noblest feature of 
Cassius's acts here? 

7. Comment on the fact that, in spite of past and present trouble 
from neglecting or defying Cassius's projects, Brutus again in- 
sists on his own way. 

8. Criticise each plan, and give your choice of the better one, 
with reasons. 

9. Why does Cassius resist no further? 

10. What is the significance of the fact that Brutus cannot 
sleep, and dreads to be alone? 

11. What is the significance of the apparition at this special 
point? Justify the term, 'Hhine evil spirit" (1. 283). What must 
have been Brutus's feelings at the words, "thou shalt see me at 
Philippi" (1. 284)? Why does he not change his plan for action 
and take Cassius's plan? 

12. Comment on his actions after the ghost's departure. 

What had been accomplished by this long act, with so little 
action in it? 

ACT V 

Scene I 

1. Comment on Oct'avius's words in the light of the preceding 
scene. What is the effect on the audience? 

2. What is revealed by Antony's words, "I am in their bos- 
oms " (1. 7) ? How much of his statement is borne out by the pre- 
cedijQg scene? 

-3.JIn the war of words, which side has the best of it? What is 
it that brings out Cassius's reproach now, when he kept silent 
during the quarrel? With which party are your sympathies, and 
why? 



184 JULIUS CMSAR 

4. What is the general tone of Cassius's words to Messala, 
"This is my birth-day," etc. (1. 70), and their effect on the au- 
dience? 

5. What is the general tone of their farewell? Account for it. 

Scene II 
What is the purpose of this short scene? 

Scene III 

1. In 11. 5-8, what light is thrown on Scene ii ? On Cassius's 
claim to being a better soldier than Brutus? 

2. How is your estimate of Cassius affected by the slave's love 
for him? By Titinius's love, so strong as to lead him to suicide at 
his friend's side? 

3. Justify Titinius's statement that with Cassius's death the 
cause is lost. 

4. Show how Cassius's death owing to his misconception is a 
fitting end. 

5. Comment on Brutus's words (11. 94-96), "Oh Julius Caesar," 
etc. I 

6. Compare this scene of Brutus's mourning over Cassius with 
Antony's grief over Caesar. 

Scene IV 

1. What is the effect of the opening words? The significance of 
the acts of Cato? Of Brutus? Reason for Lucilius's attempt to 
pass himself for Brutus? 

2. Comment on Antony's treatment of his prisoners. 

Scene V 

1. Why does Brutus, too, seek suicide through another's aid, 
as did Cassius? 

2. Comment on the fact that Cassius must seek his death at the 
hands of a slave. Brutus importunes his friends for it in vain, to 
gain it only at the hands of a common soldier. 

3. Comment on his words (11. 33-38), "Countrymen," etc. 
Compare his last words, "Caesar, now be still" (1. 50), with Cas- 
sius's last words. 

4. Justify Antony's opinion of him (11. 67-74), from first to last 
of the play. How is your estimate of Antony affected by his clos- 
ing words? 



GENERAL TOPICS 1S5 

GENERAL TOPICS 

For Full Discussion 

rLl fha™ct o7c™ dL \ (P™™S each point from the play). 

The part played by Octavius. 

The minor characters. 

The abihty of Brutus, Cassius, and Antony, each as a leader of 
men. 

The means used to increase and decrease sympathy for each of 
the leading characters. 

Why the play is named " Julius Caesar." 

The hero of the play. 

The dramatic moments. 

In each act pick out twenty consecutive lines in two different 
places, — forty from each act, — and estimate the proportion of end- 
stopt and run-on lines of feminine endings, the average position 
of the caesura, use of alliteration, variations from the iambic foot, 
use of compensating pauses, use of rhyme, of prose. 

What figure of speech is most frequently used? Give five strik- 
ing illustrations. Give two examples each of fiv© other figures. 



